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For most people Russia still conjures up images of a land of bitterly cold winds, cutting across desolate wastes, of people queuing for hours just to buy bread. It's also home to vodka and James Bond villains. But this is a country so hard to define that it prompted Winston Churchill to call it a 'riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.

It is only in recent years that this mystery is beginning to unravel, as the Russian government finally realises that whilst tourism may not look as exciting as the oil or nickel industry, it does have huge untapped potential for bringing in badly needed foreign spending power. So gradually the iron curtain is starting to lift, and for tourists this means that the days of being shunted around in large groups are now a thing of the past and independent travel within this fascinating and beautiful country is now a real possibility.

The recent change in visa regulations makes travel to Russia even easier, but you still have to organise your visa before you go. The good news - which is still a well-kept secret - is that if you're going for less than 72 hours you can now skip the complicated (and costly) visa formalities. If you're going for longer, you will still need a visa, and the more in advance you apply the cheaper it will be. To find out more about visas and to get one go to our web page on Russia.

St Petersburg is widely thought of as the most European of Russia's cities; indeed, it was created by Peter the Great as his 'window on the west'. This year is St Petersburg's 300th anniversary and the city has been getting ready for the celebrations, since last year, with buildings being spruced up courtesy of Unesco funding. Not surprisingly, the city hasn't yet adapted to individual foreign visitors. Tourists are still reckoned to be of the Russian variety (which until the Soviet Union disintegrated was, of course, a huge market), which has both benefits and drawbacks. The obvious upside is that it's refreshing not to have to swat hawkers and beggars away every few seconds and it makes a delightful change not to be treated as a dumb foreigner, ripe for the ripping off. The downside is that few Russians speak any foreign languages, which makes it almost impossible to ask questions, also most of the tours are in Russian. To get around this you need either to stay in an upmarket hotel, where management are used to organising things for foreigners, or to make sure you have an English-speaking guide to show you around when you get there. The latter of these options is surprisingly cheap and easy to arrange, making it the best way of getting to know this enigmatic country.

There is so much to see and do on a trip to St Petersburg that it is tempting to try and cram in as much as possible. But this would be a mistake - it's an enormous city, with street after street of gently decaying buildings and monuments. To help get your bearings and ensure you see the most important sights, take a guided tour - private ones are not expensive and can be reserved on our web site. This is, after all, a city with lots of history to absorb, and you don't want to spend your whole time with your nose stuck in a guidebook. We used Fairplay, a small and very dynamic Russian company, to take us around the city. To get more information and to book their tours go to our web page on St Petersburg.

As the city is so big, it's best to take a guided tour by car, but don't think you can leave your walking shoes in the hotel - you shouldn't pass up the chance to get up close and personal with some of this city's most stunning sights. The list of must-see sights is endless, but should certainly include the following: the State Hermitage Museum, the State Russian Museum and Arts Square, The Marble Palace, Stroganov Palace, Peter and Paul Fortress, the Summer Palace and Cabin of Peter the Great, Mikhailovsky Castle, Sir Isaac's Cathedral, the cruiser Auroroa, Our Saviour of the Blood Church, the Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography, and Astrosky Square with its statue of Catherine II. By the time you've taken in these sights you should have a good idea of the history and layout of the city. If you need to put your feet up for a while, take to the water - St Petersburg is made up of 43 islands and 352 bridges, so one of the best ways to see the city is by boat.

Often known as the Venice of the north, St Petersburg is an architectural delight, with palace-lined waterways and elegant streets. Almost everything revolves around a long wide avenue called Nevsky Prospect, St Petersburg's equivalent of the Champs Elysées. Once home to such notable residents as Tchaikovsky and Dostoevsky, this vibrant street is an attraction in its own right, as well as being the backbone of the city. The death of the Communist era has given birth to Western-looking bars, fast food outlets and a handful of designer boutiques, intermingled with delightfully old-fashioned department stores and grocery shops, still resplendent in their original turn-of-the-19th -century fittings. Nouveaux Riche Russians, dressed from head to toe in designer clothes, rub shoulders with the poor, who sell everything from hand crocheted bonnets to small pets at the entrance of the metro. Clapped out Soviet-era cars rumble along, overtaken by tinted-windowed four-wheel drives. It is a fascinating mix of old and new, rich and poor, that is characteristic of post-war Russia.

Once you've finished your guided tour, you will know which things you want to visit in detail. The famous State Hermitage Museum is a must - people used to come to St Petersburg for this alone, and once you've seen the treasures piled within you'll understand why. But the complex is the size of a small town, so take a good guide or you'll end up being overwhelmed. The striking thing about the museum is that its rooms are invariably as breathtaking as the objects in them, so it can be difficult to absorb the two at the same time. The collections are spread over five of the most beautiful early 18th century buildings in St Petersburg, all former palaces of the Tsars. Exhibits include prehistoric culture, Egyptian art, the art of antiquity, Scythian gold and a great collection of Western European paintings and sculptures spanning 400 rooms. Take your pick of Leonardo da Vinci, Rubens, Rembrandt, Goya…

The most stunning part of the whole museum is the section that was once Catherine's private residence. The first floor room, which overlooks the river at the front and a once-splendid roof garden at the back, is filled with dancing light, reflected from the glittering gold-encrusted walls and the fine crystal chandeliers. But don't forget to look down - the floor is a mosaic of precious and semi-precious stones, too good to stand on! Only after admiring the décor can you begin to take in the objects, including paintings by Leonardo da Vinci and an exquisite English peacock clock (which still works).

The Italian hall is another visual feast, with fabulous Italian paintings on the ceiling and fireplaces hewn from natural marble, adorned with semi-precious stones. Be careful not to overlook some of the most spectacular doors in the world - the intricate mastery of wood inlaid with the usual dose of gold was carried out by none other than the legendary Boule himself. Another eye-catcher, but in a rather different sense, is the carefully preserved 10,000 BC skeleton and the Mummies.

It would be easy to let the Hermitage eat up all of your trip, but there are plenty more treasures to be found in this city. The State Russian Museum is housed in the former Mikhailovsky Palace, built for the Duke Michael. With almost 400,000 exhibits, it has the largest collection of Russian art in the county, from ancient icons to Avant-garde. The Museum is on Arts Square; perhaps the prettiest square in St Petersburg, with its recently repainted 18th century cream and white buildings, including the Museum of Ethnography (next door) and the Philarmonia (opposite), where you should book a ticket for an opera, ballet or concert.

You should also find time to go inside Our Saviour of the Blood Church. It was built in 1907 to honour Alexander II who was assassinated on some cobbled stones that you can still see inside the church today. It's a true example of Russian-style architecture and decorative art during the late 19th/early 20th centuries, and is modelled on the photographer's delight that is St Basil's in Moscow's Red Square. The detail of the mosaic on the floors and the paintings on the walls is startling, and it's astonishing to discover that this immense, lavishly and intricately decorated church was completed in just eight years. It is also worth going off the beaten track to see the ancient sacred monuments which Nicholas I bought back from Egypt in 1832, and the Smallnic Cathedral, which is the most perfect example of Russian baroque. Painted in sky blue and white, it is a gem hidden in the government area of the city.

St Petersburg and its surroundings must surely have more palaces per square foot than anywhere in the world. But they never fail to delight and inspire; the eyes never grow weary of their golden facades gleaming in the cold grey light. It is well worth taking a trip to one of the palaces outside of the city - we chose to visit Tsarskoye Selo, a former residence of Russian emperors and a fascinating testament to the world's architectural and gardening arts of the 18th and 19th centuries. Originally Catherine's Palace, it was almost destroyed in the Second World War, but has since been lavishly and lovingly restored.

The spectacular marble staircase leads up to a first floor marble reception. From here you can make a circuit of the principal reception rooms of the residence. Each room has its own individual style and has been faithfully restored with precise copies of the original wallpapers and fabrics. Outside there are three enormous parks covering 600 hectares, which are dotted with fountains and around 100 different buildings, ranging from magnificent palaces and grand monuments to pretty little pavilions and graceful statues.

A Walk on the Wild Side

But it would be all too easy to lose yourself in the splendours of the past and leave the city without ever having gained a sense of what it's like to live in the St Petersburg of today. Gone are the days of gold and gems - the magnificent buildings that line the graceful streets are sadly decaying, occupied today by ghosts and the desperately poor.

At seven in the evening we set off once again with another guide. Our stroll starts on the bustling Nevsky Prospect, with its shops, restaurants and bars beginning to come alive for the night, but we soon turn off onto another avenue. It too is lined with 19th century apartment buildings that were once the luxurious abodes of the rich bourgeois. We follow our guide through the entrance to one of these buildings, now in a state of advanced dilapidation, the courtyard being used as a rubbish dump and the walls nothing more than a canvas for some of the city's most talented graffiti artists. It would be easy to think this was just a sad relic of a once lavish past, but the truth is that this is still someone's home…

Onto another street and we come to the area where the artists hang out. Our guide points to what was once a magnificent apartment block. The elegant wrought iron gates are still intact but the Art Noveau portico has almost collapsed and the glass is missing from the once beautiful entrance doors. But there are cars parked in front of the building and sure enough some of the apartments are still occupied. The guide explains that these people pay such incredibly low rents that they put up with the bad conditions. He also tells us that lots of people still share apartments Communist-style, happy to do so because the rent is so low and the apartments often large and centrally located.

By 8.30pm we're starting to feel hungry and our guide suggests we drop by and see some friends of his. We go into yet another shabby and apparently derelict building and grope our way through the darkness to the door. The apartment belongs to an experimental film director, Nikolai, who certainly looks the part! He shares it with two young women, one of whom organises art exhibitions and the other art therapy. The kitchen is the centre of the apartment with not much more than a table and chairs, an old tin sink and a pile of saucepans. There's an extraordinary sculpture on the ceiling that emerges from a waste pipe running up the wall. Nikolai is making Borsch and invites us to share it with him. It unfolds that this new young generation of artists are reasonably happy with their life. Their idea of luxury, is the freedom of expression, which followed the end of the Soviet era.

Shopping

If classic souvenirs of the Russian doll variety aren't your style, the shopping prospects in St Petersburg aren't very promising. But there is always plenty of caviar for sale and its very good value for money. Always worth a look is Yeliseyevsky on Nevsky Prospect, which sells all kind of food and is a visual delight, with its marbled floors, original wood and brass display cabinets, wood-panelled walls and brass art nouveau lights in the form of flowers. The shop sells everything the average customer might need to buy, at moderate prices, and it's one of the cheapest places to buy caviar, with half a kilo of black caviar costing 4,000 rubles or 133€. On the opposite side of Nevsky Prospect is the city's biggest department store, also worth a visit simply for its original turn-of-the-century furnishings.

Concerts, Opera and Ballet

St Petersburg is world famous for its opera, ballet and concerts, so be sure to get tickets for at least one performance while you are there. If you want to be sure of getting them before you leave, www.divento.com has up to date information on the major performances. You can also book at your hotel upon arrival, but odds are that prices will be substantially higher, and of course performances may be sold out.

The Mariinsky Theatre (formerly The Kirov)
This dates back to 1783 and is one of the biggest and oldest music theatres in Russia, made famous for being the home of the world-renowned Kirov Ballet. Today's ballet repertoire consists of Marius Petipa's stage versions of classical Russian ballets, including Swan Lake, Sleeping Beauty, The Nut Cracker and the like.
Teatralnaya pl, 1. For more details and bookings, go to our Russia web page.

The Mussorgsky Opera and Ballet Theatre

The Shostakovitch Philharmonic Hall
Constructed in 1834, this is the oldest and probably the biggest musical centre in Russia. The interior, with its splendid proportions and beautiful chandeliers, looks like a ballroom and in the past it has often been used for banquets and special occasions. World famous conductors and musicians including Rostropovitch have performed in the Big Hall Mikhaylovskaya ul, 2
For more details and bookings, go to our Russia web page.

Where to stay

There is a shortage of accommodation for tourists in St Petersburg, which is likely to get progressively worse from 2003 onwards. There are four five-star hotels that are more or less at the same standard as their counterparts in other European cities, but with prices to match.

The Grand Hotel Europe is our favourite. It's just off Arts Square, and a stone's throw from Nevsky Prospect, making it perfect for sightseeing and shopping. It has been beautifully preserved, but where refurbishment has been needed it has been faithfully carried out - for example, the hotel rooms and suites have been carefully restored and any furniture not an original is a true copy. The most attractive rooms are on the fifth floor, where each room has its individual terrace, perfect for admiring the charming views of Arts Square during the long summer evenings.
The most spectacular part of the hotel is the Europe restaurant, with its wood-paneled walls, its neo classical columns and its beautiful stained glass ceiling and windows. Every morning there is a veritable feast laid out for breakfast, with everything from fish eggs, for caviar lovers, to bacon and eggs. On Sunday there is a fabulous brunch buffet with a vast array of food, ranging from local Russian specialities - yes, you can help yourself to as much caviar as you like! - to Chinese food and pancakes cooked to your specifications. And, of course, you can help yourself to vodka, Russian champagne or French wines. A real treat.
For a truly Russian night out you can head straight for the Caviar Bar, (which is also within the hotel), where you can enjoy the live band whilst sampling their fine selection of caviar and vodka against a backdrop of white marble and fountains.
If you really can't face any more caviar, the hotel also has an Italian restaurant (Rossi) and a Chinese one (Chopsticks), or for a quick bite try Sadko's, which doubles as a restaurant and a pub, serving both local and international cuisine.
Grand Hotel Europe Mikhailovskaya Ulitsa 1/7 191000 St. Petersburg (7) 812 329 6885 Fax (7) 812 329 6006

The Corinthia Nevskij Palace Hotel, by contrast, is modern but it's very convenient to for getting to most of the city's main monuments and sites. The Admiralty restaurant serves typically Russian food - not just caviar, but lots of lesser-known regional dishes. The Georgian specialities are original and delicious washed down with a full-bodied Georgian red wine, whilst listening to the live band. The hotel, with its conference rooms, a business centre and health club, is perfect for business.
Corinthia Nevskij Palace Hotel Nevsky Prospect 57, St Petersburg 191025 Russia (7) 812 380 2001 Fax (7) 812 275 11 53
For hotel bookings please see our home page.

How to organize your trip

Fairplay in partnership with bookitfaster.com organizes a variety of tours which include a city tour by coach or car, ballooning or helicopter trips, tailor-made trips to the Hermitage, guided tours to the palaces outside St Petersburg, and even a tea party if you want to meet the locals. In addition, they arrange activities for children and shopping in nearby markets as well as stores. To find out more and to book go to our page on St Petersburgh.

A brief history of St Petersburg.

In February 1613, amidst the filth and debris left by foreign invaders in the great Kremlin Palace, an obscure 16 year-old prince named Mikhail Feodorovich Romanov was proclaimed Tsar and Autocrat of Russia. He was to establish a dynasty that would determine the destiny of Russia for three centuries. A line of dynastic rulers would come in his wake: Alexei--who would raise Russia to a position of importance in Eastern Europe; Peter the Great--who would build an invincible army and a new capital, St. Petersburg, and forcibly bring Russia out of the Middle Ages and into the modern world; and in the 18th century a succession of three extraordinary empresses, Anna, Elizabeth, and Catherine the Great, who would break with the tradition of supreme male authority. Catherine would bring the ideas of the Enlightenment to Russia and create a court whose splendour would rival that of Versailles.

At its height, in the mid 19th century, the empire of the Romanovs comprised more than one sixth of the earth's surface. It was a "whole world, self-sufficient, independent, and absolute", flaunting the greatest wealth in Europe. Its culture, both rich and brilliant, would continue to shine, decades after the demise of its imperial benefactors. This was the world that ended with the murders of the last of the Romanovs: Nicholas II and Alexandra, and their five children.