Russian Culture Monday: St. Petersburg

St. Petersburg is one of Russia's great cities, so it's no wonder it features heavily in Russian culture. St. Petersburg has been the setting for stories and novels (Crime and Punishment), appears in works of art (Surikov's The Bronze Horseman), and has been home of some of Russia's most interesting historic personalities (Pushkin, Repin, Mussorgsky, Dostoevsky, and many others). St. Petersburg's history has been enriched with the help of its famous and creative residents, though the tale of its rise from the swamp that Peter the Great chose as the site for his grand city, is legendary in its own right.

Those in search of Russian culture in St. Petersburg (or Petersburg, as it is sometimes called) is easy. By visiting Dostoevsky sites in St. Petersburg, travelers can follow the Russian writer's life through from marriage, to near death, to death, and pay homage to him at a museum that bears his name. The State Hermitage Museum preserves works of Russian culture, including imperial artifacts. Once a prison for political dissidents, and now open to the public, the Peter and Paul Fortress can be identified by the spire of the Peter and Paul Cathedral, where some Russian tsars are buried. Kizhi Island, near St. Petersburg, is home to important examples of Russian wooden architecture. A night at the historic Mariinsky Theater will treat patrons to new and classic Russian opera and ballet performances.

St. Petersburg is an epicenter, and and integral part, of Russian culture.

More about St. Petersburg:

• St. Petersburg Travel
• Photo Tour through St. Petersburg

More Russian Culture Monday:

• Tchaikovsky
• Russian Culture Monday Archives
• Nikolai Gogol

Couple by the Neva River, St. Petersburg photo credit: iStockphoto/Evgeniy P