Eliseyev‘s is a celebrated upmarket grocery on Nevsky Prospekt, built in the Art Nouveau style:-

View up Nevsky Prospekt. Victory Day banner prominent on lamppost:-

The store’s stained glass windows are lovely:-

Fine buildings abound on Nevsky Prospekt:-

Another Victory Day banner here:-

I photographed this one mainly because it now houses a KFC!

Or the Singer Building. It’s the corner building with the cupola and sphere. Also known as Dom Knigi. Note Victory Day banners.

The bookshop lies just by the Griboyedov Canal on the corner of Nevsky Prospekt and the Griboyedov Channel Embankment road.

We went in. It has loads of lovely books. The good lady was most taken by the illustrated children’s ones. She bought a copy of Гуси лебеди (Gusi-lebedi or Geese-swans) and (in English) Pushkin’s Fairy Tales and also The Monarchs of Russia. The shop had a large stock of SF. Unfortunately it was all in Russian!

The light fittings on the Griboyedov Channel Embankment road are something else:-

Nevsky Prospekt, (or Nevsky Avenyue) is St Petersburg’s main street, running more or less east from the Admiralty Building near the Winter Palace at the River Neva end in the west to the Moscow Railway Station and, after veering slightly southwards at Vosstaniya Square, to the Alexander Nevsky Lavra Monastery. (We didn’t go that far.)

This poster/billboard of Vladimir Putin was on a road leading to the General Staff Building:-

General Staff Building arch, Winter Palace behind:-

The Prospekt itself has many fine buildings like this pinkish grey one with great detailing:-

And something calling itself Grand Palace:-

And this church, set back from the street:-

Part of the way up the south side is this set of colonnades with shops:-

Then there’s the Kazan Cathedral:-

With its fountain:-

The fine building across the street and back a bit is almost hidden away:-

Winter Palace Gates. Famously “stormed” in the October Revolution of 1917. Except the film Eisenstein made of it rather overplayed things. There was very little resistance:-

Behind the gates lies a courtyard where there is one of the entrances to the Hermitage Museum:-

Queue for entry to Hermitage Museum:-

Trees in courtyard:-

Looking back to gates:-

The Summer Garden, the oldest garden in St Petersburg, lies over the road from the Field of Mars, between the Palace Embankment of the River Neva and the Mihailovsky Castle.

Palace Embankment, St Petersburg:-

Garden:-

Walkway:-

There are several fountains in the Summer Garden. This one is surrounded by statuary:-

Square Fountain:-

This is the most ornate fountain:-

The Mikhailovsky Castle, (known in English as St Michael’s Castle,) St Petersburg. The Tsar Paul I, Catherine the Great’s son, apparently didn’t like the Winter Palace so had this one built instead. It was built surrounded by water, for defensive purposes, to be entered only by drawbridges. Not that that did Paul much good. He was assassinated in the Palace 40 nights after moving in.

Note eagle finials on the gate posts of the Summer Gardens:-

Moyka River. St Michael’s Castle in background. Field of Mars to left. This looked more like a canal to me:-

Crossing the river you head to the Griboyedov Embankment and towards the Church on Spilled Blood. We noticed how ornate the lampposts were:-

The stunning and very Russian in style Church on the Spilled Blood and Griboyedov Canal:-

From the canal:-

From Griboyedov Embankment:-

Upper portion. It’s a pity the top was swathed in scaffolding:-

From across the canal:-

Green Onion Domes such as these are typically Russian:-

However, most of St Petersburg’s architecture is in the European style.

Senate and Synod building:-

Portico:-

Street to side:-

Central Exhibition Hall, St Petersburg:-

The Lion Palace is so-called because of the stone lions at its entrance. Corner (opposite St Isaac’s Cathedral):-

Facade:-

Stone lions:-

Just across the road from the Lion Palace is this rather sumptuous in appearance public convenience. A bit more elaborate than the average British effort:-

In the centre of Vosstaniya Square, St Petersburg, is the Leningrad Hero City Obelisk erected in 1985 to commemorate the fortieth Anniversary of the Soviet Union’s victory over German forces in the Great Patriotic War (World War 2.)

Another connection of St Petersburg to the Great Patriotic War is the old trams which still ply the city’s streets along with more modern counterparts. Despite their rattling and rolling the city’s inhabitants venerate the old models as they kept going all through the siege of the city.

One of St Petersburg’s iconic images is this equestrian statue of Peter the Great:-

The inscription is Peter I, Catherine II, 1782:-

The statue has obviously suffered damage at one time as there’s a large repaired crack in it. Possibly in war-time?