Things to Do in St Petersburg, Russia: Walking Guide

St Petersburg is a Russian city of grand Neoclassical architecture, imperial history, cultural institutions and dramatic political memories. Founded on the Neva River, it rewards exploration on foot, from Palace Square and Nevsky Prospekt to the bridges, museums and historic buildings of Vasilievsky Island. Neywo’s free audio guide for St Petersburg includes 580 narrated places, so you can discover the city while you walk.

What to see in St Petersburg

Tauride Palace and Garden

Tauride Palace is one of St Petersburg’s oldest and most historically significant palaces. Built between 1783 and 1789 to a design by Ivan Starov, it is a major example of Russian Neoclassical architecture. Its composition brings together three connected buildings beneath a central dome, a design that influenced buildings elsewhere in the country.

The palace later became an important political setting. Its interiors were adapted for the State Duma between 1906 and 1910, and during the February Revolution of 1917 it accommodated the Provisional Committee of the Duma, the Provisional Government and the Petrograd Soviet. The All-Russian Constituent Assembly met here in January 1918. The expansive Tauride Garden lies directly behind the palace.

Prachechny Bridge

Prachechny Bridge, also known as Laundry Bridge, crosses the Fontanka River beside the Summer Garden, connecting the Kutuzov and Palace embankments. It is one of the earliest stone bridges in St Petersburg and the city’s first three-span stone bridge.

Its name refers to the royal palace laundries that once stood nearby. Today, the bridge is protected as a cultural heritage site of federal significance and offers a useful connection between the riverfront and the garden.

Palace Square and the Winter Palace

Palace Square is the monumental heart of St Petersburg’s former imperial center. The approximately five-hectare pedestrian square links Nevsky Prospekt with Palace Bridge and the route to Vasilievsky Island.

Its architectural ensemble is dominated by the white-and-turquoise Winter Palace, rebuilt between 1754 and 1762 as a residence for the Russian tsars. The palace now houses part of the State Hermitage Museum, with galleries extending through its former royal interiors.

Across the square, the bow-shaped General Staff Building was designed by Carlo Rossi between 1819 and 1829. Its central double triumphal arch, topped by a bronze Roman quadriga, commemorates Russia’s victory over Napoleonic France. At the center stands the Alexander Column, erected between 1830 and 1834 to honor Alexander I and the same victory.

The Spit of Vasilievsky Island

At the eastern tip of Vasilievsky Island, the Spit forms one of St Petersburg’s most recognizable waterfront ensembles, where the Bolshaya Neva and Malaya Neva divide. The area is part of the city’s UNESCO World Heritage waterfront and brings together the Old Stock Exchange, the Rostral Columns, the Kunstkamera, the Zoological Museum, the Academy of Sciences and the Twelve Collegia.

The Spit served as St Petersburg’s sea port until 1885. Its broad riverfront setting makes it one of the city’s most rewarding places for taking in the relationship between the Neva, the skyline and the city’s imperial architecture.

The Zoological Museum

The Zoological Museum of the Russian Academy of Sciences occupies a former southern warehouse of the St Petersburg Bourse, built between 1826 and 1832. It is Russia’s oldest zoological museum and one of the largest natural history museums in the world, with more than thirty thousand specimens displayed across six thousand square meters.

The museum began with Peter the Great’s zoological collection in the Kunstkamera, founded in 1714. It became a separate institution in 1832 and moved to its current building in 1896. The entrance hall contains a monument to Karl Ernst von Baer, while large cetacean skeletons—including a twenty-seven-meter blue whale skeleton—make an immediate impression.

Imperial Academy of Arts

The Imperial Academy of Arts stands along the riverfront on Vasilievsky Island. Founded in 1757 under Empress Elizabeth Petrovna, it shaped generations of Russian painters, sculptors and architects.

Its Neoclassical headquarters was designed by Jean-Baptiste Vallin de la Mothe and constructed by Alexander Kokorinov between 1764 and 1789. The academy’s history also includes the “Revolt of the Fourteen” in 1863, when protesting graduates challenged its official academic restrictions and helped lay the foundations for the Peredvizhniki realist movement.

Senate Square

Senate Square lies on the left bank of the Bolshaya Neva, in front of St. Isaac’s Cathedral and beside the western edge of the Alexander Garden. The Admiralty rises to the east, while the Senate and Synod buildings occupy the western side.

The square is closely associated with the Decembrist Revolt of December 1825. It was renamed Decembrists’ Square in 1925 and officially returned to the name Senate Square in July 2008.

St Petersburg Mosque

St Petersburg Mosque combines Northern Art Nouveau with Central Asian Islamic traditions. Designed by Nikolai Vasilyev, it was modeled on the Gur-e-Amir mausoleum in Samarkand. Its central dome rises thirty-nine meters, while its two minarets reach forty-nine meters.

When it opened in 1913, it was the principal mosque of the Russian Empire and the largest mosque in Europe outside Turkey. The foundation stone had been laid in 1910 to commemorate the twenty-fifth anniversary of the reign of Abdul Ahat Khan in Bukhara. Construction was completed in 1921.

Steregushchy Monument

The Steregushchy Monument commemorates the torpedo boat Steregushchy, lost during the Russo-Japanese War in 1904. Unveiled in May 1911, it is notable as St Petersburg’s only monument in the Art Nouveau style and as the last monument erected in the city before the Russian Revolution.

Nevsky Prospekt

Nevsky Prospekt is St Petersburg’s main thoroughfare, lined with historic architecture and cultural landmarks. At its intersection with the Griboyedov Canal Embankment stands Engelhardt’s House, a former center of concerts, masquerades and literary gatherings.

The building became associated with figures including Alexander Pushkin, Vasily Zhukovsky, Ivan Krylov, Anton Delvig, Pyotr Vyazemsky and Kondraty Ryleyev. In the 1820s, Ivan Slyonin’s bookstore occupied the ground floor, adding to the avenue’s role in the city’s literary life.

The Garden of Friendship

The Garden of Friendship is a small Chinese garden on Liteyny Prospekt, opened in May 2003 as a gift from St Petersburg’s sister city, Shanghai, for the city’s three-hundredth anniversary. It recreates, on a smaller scale, Shanghai’s Yu Yuan, or Garden of Joy.

Its features include the Pagoda of Friendship, a Nine Dragon Wall, a stone bridge, a pond and a fountain. Carefully arranged rocks evoke miniature mountain ranges, while pines, willows, apple trees and a Japanese sakura tree complete the landscape.

St. Ann’s Church

St. Ann’s Church, or Annenkirche, was built between 1775 and 1779 for St Petersburg’s German Lutheran community. Designed by Georg Friedrich Veldten, the Neoclassical church is marked by elegant Ionic columns.

After its closure by the Soviet regime in 1935, the building was converted into a cinema called Spartak. It later operated as a nightclub before being severely damaged by a fire in 2002.

Saint Andrew’s Cathedral

Saint Andrew’s Cathedral on Vasilievsky Island is distinguished by its pastel pink exterior and five domes. It is the last Baroque cathedral built in St Petersburg.

The original project was conceived under Peter the Great as the chapter church of the Order of Saint Andrew. After a timber church on the site burned down following a lightning strike in 1761, architect Alexander Whist designed a stone replacement. Construction suffered another setback when the main cupola collapsed in 1766, and the completed cathedral was finally consecrated in 1780.

The Siege of Leningrad memorial

The Siege of Leningrad memorial recalls the city’s 872-day encirclement during the Second World War. The blockade began on September 8, 1941, when German and Finnish forces cut the last overland routes between Leningrad and the rest of the Soviet Union.

Bombing, starvation and the bitter winter of 1941–1942 caused hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths. Lake Ladoga became the city’s remaining lifeline: supplies arrived by boat in warmer months, by air and across the ice in winter along the route known as the Road of Life.

Explore St Petersburg with a free audio guide

Neywo offers 7 walking tours and 1 bus route in St Petersburg, with narration available in 11 languages. The walks range from 2.66 to 3.99 km and from 89 to 116 minutes, while the bus route covers 5.5 km in 24 minutes. Together, the tours include between 6 and 12 narrated stops each.

Choose a route through the imperial center, follow Nevsky Prospekt to the Church of the Savior on Blood, discover where the city was born at Peter and Paul Fortress, or explore Vasilievsky Island and the historic Spit. The app tells the story of each place as you reach it, at your own pace, with no group and no schedule.

Download Neywo and explore St Petersburg independently, from its palaces and squares to its bridges, museums and riverfront landmarks. For more of the country, continue with the Russia guide, or compare St Petersburg with Moscow, Yekaterinburg, Vladivostok, Sochi or Kaliningrad.