St. Petersburg is Russia’s gateway to Europe. It was built as a different, westernmost, and westernmost city in Russia, and to this day one can still feel its echoes. Despite decades of World War II siege and communism, St. Petersburg remained by itself, undamaged, or rebuilt. St. Petersburg is an eternal symbol of Russian culture, so no self-respecting Russian government allowed it to be destroyed. Kiev tour guides told some interesting facts about st. Petersburg.

Peterhof Tsarist Palace and Fountains in St. Petersburg

 

St. Petersburg Center: Museums in the Museum.

 

Every European colonial empire in the 19th century. accumulated masterpieces of art and was proud of them when opening the museum. Russia was then the second-largest empire, second only to Britain. 

 

Thus, the museums of St. Petersburg – among the leading in the world. The most famous is the Hermitage, founded in the halls of the Russian Tsar’s Palace. Kiev tour guides. The only equivalent competitor in the world to him when it comes to classical art is the Louvre in Paris.

 

Both of these museums have everything from Egyptian mummies to masterpieces by medieval and Renaissance artists. True, the Hermitage collection is not quite beautifully collected: many paintings are torn apart during the many wars between Russia and the Soviet Union and are still not returned to their rightful owners. 

 

Even in exotic Iran, in the mausoleum of Ardabil, I saw an inscription next to empty ornate niches: “the sets of dishes were kidnapped by the Russians and taken to the Hermitage.” 

 

And German collectors suffered the most from the “Soviet robbers”. Allegedly because Germany was ruled by Hitler, it was possible to steal the property of ordinary Germans. Of course, the paintings of the Soviets and Russian collectors were nationalized, but not all of them remained in the Hermitage – some of them were secretly sold to foreigners by the Soviet Union during the interwar period.

 

Painting in the Hermitage

 

In the late Soviet era, the Hermitage again became an inviolable symbol of Russia. Such that in the year of the Revival, attacked Rembrandt’s “Danajė” with a knife and acid, who already has so much in common with Russia that he hangs in the Hermitage. Today, a picture hangs under the picture that he was “destroyed by a maniac”.

 

To the museums of St. Petersburg, the Russian Empire still seems to be alive. Lithuanian, Latvian, or Estonian folk art (after all, the nations of the empire) can also be found in the Museum of Russian Ethnography. Kiev tour guides. And the works of M. K. Čiurlionis are exhibited in the Russian Museum.

 

St. Petersburg center

 

By the way, the whole center of St. Petersburg is a real open-air museum. Not any village museum, but a majestic palace: even military buildings such as the Admiralty are as impressive as a tsar’s mansion. 

 

The fortresses of Peter and Paul near the city center and Kronstadt, an entire tsarist city of sailors on the island, blocking the enemy fleets’ way to St. Petersburg, are not far behind (and far outnumbered). “Worked” perfectly: the Nazis in St. Petersburg in 1941-1944. was besieged but not occupied, and the story of his deadly blockade became a kind of heroic epic of the Russian nation.

 

The most beautiful palace is in the suburbs of St. Petersburg.

 

After abandoning the Hermitage for art, the tsars moved to other, even more, ornate palaces in the suburbs of St. Petersburg. The most famous of them is Peterhof, “Versailles of Russia” with a magnificent park along the Gulf of Finland, and others – Tsarskoye Selo, Pavlovsk, and Gachina.

 

Hermitage facade advised to visit by Kiev tour guides

 

True, the names of common chambers have several. Peter, I, and the other tsars of Russia were so fascinated by the West that they even baptized their cities and palaces in Russian. Even St. Petersburg itself – after all, “-burg” is a “city” in German (in Russian it would be “gorod” or “-grad”).

 

However, in the twentieth century. As Russia began to conflict with Germany, the names were crushed. Yes, St. Petersburg in 1914. became Petrograd, Peterhof – Petrodvorets. And when the communists overthrew the tsar, the place names associated with the monarchy were also removed from the maps. Petrograd in 1924 renamed Leningrad, Tsarskoye Selo (“Tsar’s homestead”) – Pushkin. Kiev tour guides.

 

Selo Palace in Tsarskoye

 

The townspeople of St. Petersburg (Leningrad) themselves managed to maintain an intellectual tsarist spirit even during the Soviet era, and with the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, 54% of the vote in a referendum decided to quickly reclaim the city’s old name. The traditional example given to highlight the special curiosity of the people of St. Petersburg is the 24-hour bookstores; I saw it with my own eyes.

 

Meanwhile, the people of the shattered surrounding towns and villages were much more united. Therefore, the surrounding area is still called the “Leningrad Region” (although it has not been in Leningrad for almost 30 years). And other Soviet names in the suburbs of St. Petersburg remained quite widely used.

 

In the end

Certainly, the facts are interesting, the history always provides some insightful information. If you would like to hear a similar fact from the excerpt, check out showaround.com.