Our exploration of St Petersburg series takes in all the main sights, from imperial palaces and grand churches to the places connected with the city’s dramatic history. We search out the Soviet era, find out what makes the city the world’s capital of ballet and explore its art, architecture and literature. Be ready to ‘meet’ such characters as Peter the Great, Rasputin and the Romanovs, Pushkin, Nureyev and Dostoyevsky.
The 17 episodes in our City Break St Petersburg series bring you all the background history and culture you need to fully understand this unique city. In short, here is all the research you’d do yourself if only you had the time.
Each episode centres around a podcast, available here or on all the usual providers. For all our other series, there’s a blogpost to go along with each episode, comprising a summary of the main information, plus pictures, useful links and ideas for further reading. For St Petersburg, these have yet to be written. Please bear with us until we get to it! Thank you, or, in Russian, Спасибо. (That’s pronounced ‘spassibo’!)
ST PETERSBURG : HISTORY & CULTURE

Episode 1: Introduction to St Petersburg

Episode 2: Peter the Great

Episode 3: The Peter and Paul Fortress, Peterhof

Episode 4: The Catherine Palace, St Petersburg

Episode 5: Nevsky Prospekt, St Petersburg’s Grandest Street

Episode 6: The Palace Embankment

Episode 7: Alexander Palace and the Last Romanovs

Episode 8: Faberge and Rasputin

Episode 9: St Petersburg Revolutions

Episode 10: St Petersburg’s Soviet Era

Episode 11: The Siege of Leningrad

Episode 12: Music and Theatre in St Petersburg

Episode 13: St Petersburg, World Capital of Ballet

Episode 14: The Art and Architecture of St Petersburg

Episode 15: Father of Russian Literature, Alexander Pushkin

Episode 16: Gogol, Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky

Episode 17: Finding Leningrad in Literature

St Petersburg Extra: A Virtual Tour of St Petersburg
MORE READING ABOUT St Petersburg
Useful websites for tourists
St Petersburg City Tourist Information Bureau
St Petersburg.Com (Tourist Information)
2 guidebooks to St Petersburg
Eyewitness Travel Guide to St Petersburg
Lonely Planet Guide to St Petersburg
Travel Book
Among the Russians by Colin Thubron
History
Russian History, a Very Short Introduction by Geoffrey Hosking
The Romanovs by Simon Sebag Montefiore
Caught in the Revolution by Helen Rappaport
Biography
Peter the Great by Lindsey Hughes
Peter the Great by Derek Wilson
Catherine the Great by Simon Dixon
Catherine the Great by Robert K Massie
Rasputin by Frances Welch
Four Sisters by Helen Rappaport (the 4 daughters of Czar Nicholas II)
The Diary of Lena Mukhina (A diary of the Siege of Leningrad)
Art and Culture
A Short Life of Pushkin by Robert Chandler
Nijinsky by Lucy Moore
Rudolf Nuryev The Life by Julie Kavanagh
Anna of all the Russias The Life of Anna Akhmatova by Elaine Feinstein
Anthologies
St Petersburg A Traveller’s Companion by Laurence Kelly
City Pick St Petersburg edited by Heather Reyes
Literary St Petersburg by Elaine Blair
Novels set in St Petersburg
Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky
The Siege by Helen Dunmore
The Betrayal by Helen Dunmore
The Suitcase by Sergei Dovlatov
PODCASTS TO GET YOU STARTED



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