The hook
A capital built from nothing on a swamp by imperial decree, laid out in canals and pastel baroque along the Neva, holding one of the largest art collections on Earth — and, for a few weeks in June, never quite going dark.
01Why it's worth it
Peter the Great founded the city in 1703 to face Europe, imported architects to build it, and the result is unlike anywhere else in Russia: a planned, low, water-threaded city of ochre and eau-de-nil facades rather than a medieval tangle. The Hermitage occupies the Winter Palace and four adjoining buildings, with a collection so large that the standard line about needing years to see it properly is close to literal. Around it: the Church of the Saviour on Spilled Blood covered inside and out in mosaic, Peterhof's cascading fountains, the Mariinsky's ballet, and Dostoevsky's actual streets. During the White Nights in June the sun barely sets and the whole city stays out. Its other history is heavier and inseparable — the 872-day Siege of Leningrad killed perhaps a million people here, and the Piskaryovskoye cemetery is where that is held.
Access, stated plainly. Since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, travel here has changed fundamentally: most Western airlines do not fly to Russia and airspace is closed to many carriers, so routings go via third countries; Visa and Mastercard issued outside Russia do not work, so foreign cards fail at ATMs and tills; visas are harder to obtain; travel insurance frequently excludes the country; and numerous governments advise against all or all-but-essential travel. Consular help is limited if something goes wrong. None of that is a judgement on whether to go — it is what the trip now involves, and it should be checked current before any planning.
02How to experience it
Give the Hermitage a full day and book ahead; pick two or three wings rather than attempting it whole. Walk the canals and Nevsky Prospekt, take a night at the Mariinsky, and day-trip to Peterhof by hydrofoil in summer. Come in June for the White Nights, and learn the Cyrillic alphabet before arriving — it takes an evening and transforms signage.
From the locals
Travellers who spent time there rated the country highly and gave one piece of advice above all others: "learning the Cyrillic alphabet will help immensely — you don't need to learn it thoroughly, just enough to get by and recognise patterns." Note that most first-hand accounts in the corpus predate 2022 and describe conditions, prices and visa routes that no longer apply.