back next St. Petersburg and Peterhof Photos PURCHASE FOR GREAT MEMORIES OF YOUR TRIP TO RUSSIA- FOR HOME OR OFFICE. This gallery features images of St Petersburg, Russia and nearby Peterhof. Some useful travel resources are: Saint Petersburg Site St.Petersburg, Russia Site Founded by Peter the Great on May 16, 1702 , St. Petersburg is a city crossed by 86 rivers, canals, 300 kilometers long and more than a hundred islands in the delta of the Neva River. Named capital of Russia in 1712 , the city has had several names : Petrograd in 1914 , Leningrad in 1924 to recover its original name, St. Petersburg, Since its founding in 1991 has been the most important Russian port which has favored the development . a powerful and varied industry . It is also a cultural, artistic and intellectual center of great activity. All this makes it the second largest city after Moscow. St. Petersburg at night images include The Admiralty, The Hermitage, Palace Square, Winter Palace, Arch of the General Staff Building, Peter and Paul Fortress,and Kunstkammer. The Admiralty was built between 1704-1711 by Andrey Zakharov who decorated the facade with symbols of Russia's fleet. It was originally a ship yard. The first Russian battleships were built there. The building features Neo-classical gate tower and a gilded cupola with a 230 foot high spire. The Hermitage and Palace Square was designed by Carlo Rossi. It was the sight of the bloody massacre on January 9, 1905--1000 protestors gunned down by mounted troops of Tsar Nicholas II. The nearby Winter Palace was built in 1754 with the Alexander Column (Alexander I) erected in 1834. Arch of the General Staff Building (Palace Square opposite of Winter Palace) was ready in time for victory celebrations after the Russo-Turkish War of 1828-1829, and also played a central role in celebrations on 8 July 1945, when Soviet troops returning victorious from the Great Patriotic War marched through it onto Palace Square. Designed to commemorate victory over Napoleon in 1812, the walls of the archway are decorated with figures of the Goddess of Glory flying on canon balls, while the arch on the Palace Square side is crowned with a magnificent sculpture of Glory in her Chariot of Victory, pulled by six horses, the outer two of the team held by warriors. Peter and Paul Fortress dates back to the founding of St. Petersburg in 1703. It was constructed by serfs and Swedish prisoners of war- many of whom perished. The Fortress contains the Cathedral of SS Peter and Paul. The beach in front of the fort is a favorite for sunbathers. Kunstkammer is the City's first museum built between 1718-1734. It housed Peter the Great's collection of anatomical curiousities- two headed animals, deformed foetuses, heart and skeleton of Peter's servant, display of teeth pulled from the tsar (dentistry his hobby) and more unusual items. Now houses collections of 19th century art. St. Petersburg daytime images include St. Issac's Cathedral, St. Issac's Square, Mariinskiy Palace, Statue of Nicholas I mounted on horse back, Church on the Spilled Blood,Nevskiy Prospekt, Stroganov Palace, Singer Building facade, Victory Monument, Choral Synagogue, Red and Blue Bridges, and Griboedov Canal. St. Issac's Cathedral was built in 1858. The Cathedral South doors has scenes from the bible. The cathedral features 48 red granite columns imported from Finnland, Statues of the Apostles, a guilded dome decorated with angels designed by French architect Auguste de Montferrand. The dome weights 300,000 tonnes. Nearby St. Issac's Square features the Astoria hotel, Mariinskiy Palace which is now the St. Petersburg City Hall, the Statue of Nicholas I mounted on horse back (2 back legs on ground, others in air) built by Pyotr Klodt. Nicholas I led Russia into the Crimean War. The reliefs on the pedestal depict his 30 year reign. The Mariinskiy Palace occupies a prominent position in St. Petersburg's historic centre, across St. Isaac's Square and the Blue Bridge from St. Isaac's Cathedral. The land on which it was built had originally been the site of the St. Petersburg residence of Zakhar Chernyshev, a prominent military commander who had played a key role in the Seven Years' War and been Minister of War in the reign of Catherine the Great. In 1839, Emperor Nicholas I commissioned the court architect Andrey Stackensneider to build a palace as a wedding present for his daughter, Grand Duchess Maria Nikolaevna, who was about to marry Duke Maximilian of Leuchtenberg, the step-grandson of Napoleon Bonaparte and a keen amateur scientist and art collector. Stackensneider, who was also responsible for the Nikolaevskiy Palace and the Beloselskiy-Belozerskiy Palace, created a monumental neoclassical building with intricate decor inspired by medieval French and Renaissance architecture. The original palace interiors were equally eclectic, with each hall decorated in a different style. In 1884, the Mariinskiy Palace was bought back from Maria Nikolaevna's heirs by the Imperial Estates and assigned by Alexander III to house the State Council of Imperial Russia. The centenary session of the State Council in the Mariinskiy Palace on 5 May 1901 was the subject of a painting by Ilya Repin on display in the Russian Museum. The palace has been used as a government building ever since - as home to the Council of the Russian Republic under the Provisional Government of 1917, to the Leningrad Soviet after the Second World War, and since 1994 to St. Petersburg's Legislative Assembly. Stroganov Palace is located at the corner of Nevsky Prospekt and the Moyka River, 17, Nevsky Prospekt. The Stroganov family had been prominent merchants since the 15th century, but rose to the ranks of the aristocracy only in the reign of Peter the Great, when the family was ennobled in thanks for considerable financial assistance to the Tsar's armies in the Great Northern War. The family was brought to national prominence by Baron Sergey Griogoryevich Stroganov in the reign of Empress Elizabeth, and by his son Count Alexander Sergeevich Stroganov, who was a leading St. Petersburg administrator and ended his life as President of the Academy of Arts and Director of the Imperial Public Library. It was the former who commissioned the building of the Stroganov Palace from Francesco Bartolomeo Rastrelli in 1752. The exteriors that he created were completed in 1754, and remain intact to this day, one of the most prominent masterpieces of late Baroque in St. Petersburg. The entrance to the palace is guarded by two ornamental posts with animal masks – a rare example of mid-eighteenth century cast-iron artwork. In 1760, a whole row of masks with joining chains ran along the entire facade, separating the palace from the canal in front of the building, which was later filled in. On the coat of arms are two sables standing on hind legs and holding in their forepaws a shield divided into two parts: on the lower part fur is depicted; on the upper part, the head of a bear. Above the shield is a helmet and another bear’s head. Symbols of wealth and power. St. Petersburg's largest and most famous bookshop, Dom Knigi ("House of the Book") occupies one of the most beautiful buildings on Nevsky Prospekt - the Singer Company Building, an innovative and richly decorated Art Nouveau masterpiece. In 1902, the plot of land was bought for a million rubles by Singer Manufacturing Company, the world-famous maker of sewing machines. The company wanted a building similar to the skyscraper that was then being constructed for them in New York. However, St. Petersburg's strict building codes dictated that no building could be higher than 23.5 meters at the cornice. Despite these limitations, the architect Pavel Syuzor managed to create a supremely elegant building that captured the spirit of the age, and featured a number of technological innovations. It was the first building in St. Petersburg to use a metal frame, which made possible the huge windows on the ground floor. Another first for St. Petersburg was the glass-roofed atrium, and the building was equipped with the latest lifts, heating and air-conditioning and an automatic system for clearing snow from the roof. Winged figures of Industry and Navigation on the Singer Company Building (Dom Knigi) To create the illusion of greater height, Syuzor crowned his building with a metal-and-glass tower topped by a glass globe 2.8 meters in diameter that lit up with an advert for the company. The decorations on the building were executed in wrought bronze, a material that was new to St. Petersburg. The sculptures on the building were designed by the Estonian sculpture Amandus Heinrich Adamson, and their weathered green bronze blends beautifully with the gray and red granite of the facades. The interiors of the building, fully restored 2004-2006, also feature a wealth of magnificent art nouveau decorations. The building rapidly became one of the most famous and best-loved on Nevsky Prospekt. It was briefly home to the US Embassy during the First World War and soon after the October Revolution it was nationalized and assigned to the state publishing company Petrogosizdat (later Lenizdat). The offices of several other publishing organizations found space in the building, including Lendetgiz - the Leningrad Children's State Publisher, which had among its employees a number of celebrated writers, including Daniil Kharms and Mikhail Zoshchenko. Dom Knigi, the main state bookseller, was opened in the building in 1938. During the Siege of Leningrad, the shop continued to operate even when a bomb was dropped on the neighbouring building, shattering all of Dom Knigi's windows and flooding the storage rooms. It was only in the winter of 1941 that the shop, lacking electricity and heating, closed temporarily. The building was closed in 1948 to repair war damage, and again for restoration in the middle of the last decade. Otherwise, it has been St. Petersburg's most popular bookshop for over seventy years. Church on the Spilled Blood is an example of the Russian revival style which is rare for a city with mostly Baroque and Neo-Classical architecture. It was built in 1881 as memorial to Alexander II on the site of his assassination. The building was designed by Alfred Parland and Ignatiy Malyshev and features eatures mosaic walls, mosaic portraits of Saints, marble window frames, (marble from Estonia), mosaic tympanum depicting new testament. During the siege by the Nazis, starving citizens gathered to pray to the mosaic. The church has a steeple that is 265 ft high, 144 mosaics on the Bell Tower Coat, Icons allover it. The perimeter of the lower wall has 20 dark red plaques made from Norwegian granite illustrating 25 year reign of Alexander II from 1855-1881. This rule included emancipation of the serfs. The cathedral is never used for weddings, funerals or church services. Just honors the Tsar. One of the four surviving colour-coded bridges crossing the Moika River, the Red Bridge carries Gorokhovaya Ulitsa, and has superb views onto the Admiralty and the Alexander Gardens. The first wooden drawbridge was laid at this site in 1717. The bridge's current aspect dates back 1814, when an arched cast-iron bridge was completed. The cast-iron arch was replaced with a steel copy in 1953-54 and, at the same time, four small obelisks topped with small bronze spheres were added to the bridge's granite piers. The Choral Synagogue opened in 1893. The construction was allowed under reign of Nicholas I. It was designed by Ivan Shaposhnikov in Moorish style. The Cupola is 154 feet high. It is the second largest synagogue in Europe. It was built between 1880 and 1888, and consecrated in 1893. the project boasted an eclectic blend of neo-Byzantine and Moorish revival styles with Arabesque motifs, upon the request of V. V. Stasov, the influential Russian art critic and supervisor of the project. The land for the synagogue was allocated near the Mariinsky Theatre. The Narva Triumphal Arch was erected as a memorial to the war of 1812. A wooden triumphal arch designed according to the plan of famous Italian classical architect Dzhakomo Quarenghi. Quarenghi also built the Concert Hall pavilion (1782-88), Alexander Palace in Pushkin (1792-1800) and the Smolny Institute (1806-08) in St. Petersburg. The Narva Triumphal Arch was specially constructed on the Narva highway to greet the soldiers who were returning from abroad after their victory over Napoleon. The arch was located approximately halfway between Ploshchad Stachek and Obvodny Canal. Construction on the new arch essentially began in the 1830's after a long debate about what material to use for the facade of the new arch. Stasov suggested building the arch from brick and using sheets of copper for the facade. His idea was innovative in Russian and Western European construction circles at the time. The copper facade sheets, ornament and sculpture details from copper and arch decorations were produced at a local factory. Construction was completed on the arch in the fall of 1833, but it was officially opened one year later on August 17, 1834. During WWII the arch suffered serious damage, but was carefully restored to its present condition in 1951. The House of Soviets is the finest example in St. Petersburg of the grandiose monumental architecture of the Stalinist era, and was once the focal point of ambitious plans to relocate the centre of the city south, away from the threat of regular flooding, and from the inescapable symbolic remnants of Tsarist power. The monolithic seven-storey central block is flanked by symmetrical five-storey T-shaped wings, and decorated with friezes depicting muscular Soviet workers and Pioneers, crowned with a large Soviet crest. The building was completed just before the outbreak of the Great Patriotic War, and rapidly assigned as a regional command post for the Soviet Army, remaining close to the front line throughout the Siege of Leningrad. Concrete bunkers from this time can still be seen dotted around the building. After the war, it was occupied by various research institutes, mostly focused on military electronics. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, parts of the building have been rented out as office space. The enormous statue of Lenin in front of the House of Soviets was designed by Mikhail Anikushin and erected in 1970. Victory Monument was Errected in 1975 to mark 30th anniversary of WWII end. It features Granite sculptures of grieving mothers, workers, partisans, sailors, pilots and Soviet soldiers. All dedicated to the victims of the siege of Leningrad. The Siege lasted 900 days with about 2 million deaths due to starvation and winter exposure. The following description is replicated from the monument's web site. This powerful and impressive monument was built as the focal point of Ploshchad Pobedy (Victory Square) in the early 1970s to commemorate the heroic efforts of the residents of Leningrad and the soldiers on the Leningrad Front to the repel the Nazis in the 900-day Siege of Leningrad during World War II. Decorated Russian architect Sergei Speransky won the competition with his knowledge of city construction design and the pervasiveness of the theme of World War II victory in his art. As early as 1946, he was active in the restoration of Minsk and the creation of a World War II monument there. His competition-winning design for Ploshchad Pobedy was highlighted by a broken ring surrounding a high-level composition dedicated to the Leningrad citizen's successful efforts to repel the terrible 900-day Nazi siege during World War II. A monument was designed to rise up from the center of the ring, flanked on the western and eastern sides by the horizontal ray buildings in the fold of the massive and Stalinesque Moscow Prospekt and the tall towers at the intersection of the square and the prospekt. The square was formally named Ploshchad Pobedy in 1962. Up until then it had been named Sredney Rogatki Ploshchad. After the completion of construction on several nine-story apartment buildings along Moscow Prospekt near Ploshchad Pobedy, a second competition was announced for the monument, which was by then called "The Monument to the Heroic Defenders of Leningrad." This time more than 80 applicants participated, but Speransky and his team nevertheless prevailed with their design "Eternal Flame of Our Memory." The sobering space inside the broken ring is lit with gas torches. Engravings on the walls of the monument are dedicated to the nationwide recognition of the courage shown by the defenders of Leningrad. Inside the monument, in a vast underground memorial hall, there is an exhibition devoted to the Siege. English-speaking guides are usually available upon request. Pay special attention to the detailed map of Leningrad defenses, and the beautiful mosaics on the eastern and western walls of the hall. On the outside, up a short flight of stairs from the exhibition, you can see the sculptures representing soldiers, sailors and civilians who did not surrender to the Nazis despite hunger, cold and constant bombardment. The author of the sculptures M. Anikushin powerfully depicts with raw emotion the story of the great feat of the people of Leningrad and the soldiers on the Leningrad front.