About the city St. Petersburg was founded in 1703 on the shores of the river Neva by Peter the Great, the first Emperor of Russia, as a new capital of the Russian State. Nowadays, St. Petersburg has the title of the "Northern Capital". It is Russia's second largest city after Moscow, and with a population of almost 5 million people, remains a centre of culture, education and industry.

St. Petersburg has witnessed many historical and cultural events and is world famous as the city which withstood the 900-day siege of Leningrad during the Second World War. The city is renowned for its outstanding poets, musicians and painters, and is often described as "The Venice of the North".

Magnificent palaces, leafy parks, majestic monuments, beautiful rivers and canals with granite embankments, and bridges with decorated arches and cast-iron railings, have made the city famous as one of the most beautiful cities in Europe.

St. Petersburg is particularly beautiful and mysterious during the "White Nights" season, when the sun never quite sets and the days and nights merge into one. For fifty white nights a year in the middle of summer the city doesn't sleep, earning it another romantic name "The Northern Palmyra". During this time, you'll be given a unique chance to see breathtaking draw bridges opening along the river Neva to allow ships coming from the Ladoga Lake to pass into the Gulf of Finland.

Planned to be Russia's "Window on the West", Saint- Petersburg will become your very own gateway to Russia with the help of "Troika-Reisen".