Peter and Paul Fortress, Smolny and Revolutionary Saint Petersburg
Take a walk around Peter and Paul Fortress and its surrounding area with your Saint Petersburg tour guide.
Visit the mansion of prima ballerina Kshessinskaya, the lover of the last tsar, Nicholas II. It was later taken over by the Bolsheviks' revolutionary committee, and from its balcony Lenin delivered his "All Power to the Soviets" speech.
Stroll along the River Neva's embankments, where every stone remembers the past. Enjoy a breathtaking view from its bridges and stable granite embankments that do not exist anywhere else in the world.
See the Admiralty, Palace, English, Peter's, and University embankments.
Visit Peter and Paul Fortress (included) or another museum of your choice, such as the Museum of Political History or the Aurora cruiser museum. You can also visit the City History Museum inside the fortress.
As a bonus, examine a miniature version of St. Petersburg, with replicas of iconic buildings presented to scale.
Find out about the history of Peter's creation. We then proceed to places connected with more recent Russian history.
Hear the story of a love affair between a young girl who had just graduated from the Imperial Ballet Academy and the future tsar of all Russia. They met at the graduation ceremony and remained lovers before Nicholas became happily married to his wife.
See the maximum-security political prison of Peter and Paul Fortress, where Vladimir Lenin's brother was incarcerated along with other comrades and predecessors such as the utopian socialist democratic writer Cherniyshevskyi.
Explore Peter and Paul Cathedral, with its bell tower rising to a height of 122 metres.
Look at the history of the struggles for democracy in Russia in the beautiful surroundings of the baroque and classical ensembles of the Smolny Convent and Institute, which served as the headquarters of the Bolshevik Revolution, and the Taurida Palace, which was the seat of the first Russian democratically elected parliament.
Learn about other events that began with plots to take power through murder and coup d'etat, from the very foundation of the city to its Soviet past - events that shook the world and changed its history.
Take a walk in the area of St. Petersburg connected with some of the most infamous murders in Russia's bloody history with your Petersburg tour guide.
Learn about the appearance of the first Soviet grassroots movement, which began during strikes when workers sent their representatives on the eve of the first Russian Revolution of 1905.
Start from Smolny Monastery, the iconic baroque building built by Rastrelli during the reign of Elisabeth.
Visit the grounds where Peter moved his family from Moscow, including his only son, Prince Alexy, whom he later tortured and killed because of his desire to return to the old Muscovite ways of running Russia.
Get to know about the conflict between Westernizers and Slavophiles over the best ways to rule Russia.
Visit Starov's Taurida Palace and Garden, the seat of the first Russian democratically elected parliament, built as a farewell present for Prince Potemkin, a famous statesman and one of the favourites of Catherine the Great.
See the whole ensemble and estate grounds that she commissioned, the best example of a combination of classical architecture and English "Capability Brown" gardening style, possible only in the flat expanses of St. Petersburg.
Find out about the struggles Lenin faced in bringing about the revolution.
See the steam train on which Lenin arrived from Germany, along with his wife and a lover, to be greeted by his comrades.
See Stalin's bas-relief at Ploshad Vosstaniya (Insurrection Square), named because it was the place where the second February bourgeois revolution began from the spontaneous movement of angry housewives who could not get bread in the shops after waiting for it all night.
