World City Guide

Further Distractions

Piskariovskoye Memorialnoe Kladbishche (Piskarivskoye Memorial Cemetery)
Rather than a tourist attraction, Piskarivskoye Memorial Cemetery is a place of pilgrimage for the dwindling survivors of the 1941-44 Siege of Leningrad but is all the more poignant for that. Below large grassy mounds, under the gaze of a massive bronze of Mother Russia, lie the mass graves of 500,000 of those who starved to death in the Nazi blockade. The story is told in the Memorial halls. The suffering and endurance are palpable.

Nepokorennykh prospekt 74
Tel: (812) 247 5716.
Transport: Metro Akademicheskaya; bus 71, T94, 123 or 178.
Opening hours: Daily 1000-1800.
Admission: Free.

Kreyser Avrora (Cruiser Aurora)
Launched in St Petersburg, in 1900, the Cruiser Aurora was significant in the major events of Russian history in the first half of the 20th century. Active in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-5, it fired the shot at the Winter Palace in 1917, which signalled the storming of the palace and the beginning of Bolshevik rule. It was sunk during the Siege of Leningrad in 1941 and raised in 1944, to be refitted as a museum in the 1950s. The crew’s quarters and the gun that fired the historic shot are on display, as are photographs and memorabilia of the ship’s chequered history.

Petrovskaya Naberezhnaya, opposite the Nakhimov Navy School
Tel: (812) 230 8440.
Transport: Metro Gorkovskaya.
Opening hours: Tues-Thurs, Sat and Sun 1030-1600.
Admission: Free.

Muzeh Antropologiy i Etnografii imena Petra Velikovo – Kunstkamera (Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology and Ethnology – Kunstkamera)
Although the museum has numerous exhibits on people and cultures from around the world and is the oldest state museum in all of Russia, the collection of physical abnormalities is what usually draws visitors. During Peter the Great’s tour of Europe, the future tsar came across Doctor Ruysch’s collection of physically abnormal foetuses preserved in alcohol, which he later was able to bring back to Russia. The collection is best for visitors with an intense scientific curiosity or, in lieu of that, a strong stomach.

Universitetskaya Nabrezhnaya 3
Tel: (812) 328 1412. Fax: (812) 328 0811.
E-mail: info@kunstkamera.lanck.ru
Website: www.kunstkamera.ru
Transport: Metro Vasileostrovskaya; bus 7, 10; trolleybus 1, 7, 10.
Opening hours: Tues-Sun 1100-1800; closed last Tues of the month; ticket offices close 80 minutes before closing time.
Admission: US$2.