If You Wanted to Visit St. Petersburg the Time Has Come

10 min readJul 22, 2019

I was born in a nice city of St. Petersburg to become a model then an art critic then a social media specialist. Maybe that’s why I have lots of friends and friends of friends from different countries who like to ask me the same questions about my city — what is the best time to come, IS IT SAFE, what to see, where to eat, drink and go out at night, how to communicate with the police, how to meet a beautiful Russian girl.

Now I will answer all of them in just one article!

Best Time to Come to St. Petersburg

From the second half of May to the first half of September. Unless you like harsh weather conditions.

IS IT SAFE here in St. Petersburg & in Russia?

Surprisingly yes. Saint Petersburg is completely safe unless you behave strange for Russians. It doesn’t mean you should “act like Russian”, drink vodka all the time and dance with brown bears. I mean other things. People here are quite conservative, so… okay, I’ll say it straight. If you are homosexual or transgender better do not make love in public.

Other important things:
— if intrusive young people invite you to the tea degustation, don’t go. They will try to sell you cheap tea by enormous price.
— if you go to a bar (especially the ones on Dumskaya str. or Lomonosova str.) watch out for your drink and avoid going to another club together with suspicious people. Works for any country though.

Essentials:

Almost ALL places accept credit cards, so you don’t need much cash
The police are super loyal to foreigners unless you break the law
Most 20–30 year old people speak English, people older than 45 usually don’t
Taxi is quite cheap compared to the EU, if you use Yandex.Taxi, Gett taxi, Uber (but better not Uber), Bolt. Taxi you catch by the street is expensive
If you plan to use public transportation, download Yandex.Transport app. It’s quite user-friendly

Nice picture to impress you visiting St.P. if you are still doubting

How to Deal with the Police?

For a foreign citizen communication is completely safe. If you don’t want to talk to them, just say something like “I’m from the United Kingdom, I don’t understand what you are talking about” — they will leave you alone because 90% of them don’t speak your language.

But if you need help you need to find the tourist police (they speak foreign languages) or someone who will translate for you — your friend or guide or someone in your hotel/hostel etc.

What to See?

Okay, I guess you already googled most famous attractions, but I’ll add my subjective opinion.

Famous attractions that are worth visiting for me:

Hermitage — very big, glorious traditional Baroque style museum, great paintings and sculptures
Church of Savior on the blood — church built on the place where the famous Russian Emperor was killed. Go inside to watch stunning mosaics

Russian Museum — if you like Russian art and culture go for it. Malevich, Kandinsky, Filonov and other great Russian artists’ works are there.

View from the fortress at Peter and Paul’s church

Peter and Paul Fortress, by the legend the city started from here but that’s not true. Still, it’s a nice fortress with canonic views on St. Petersburg. There is also a church in Petrine Baroque style which is rare and specific for St. P. But please don’t go to all these small museums inside the island — it’s a waste of money. Better go for a walk on the top of fortress or to the church viewpoint.

Great less-known places

Museum of political history has a great exposition and audioguides in English — full-depth immersion into Russian history. It’s located close to Peter and Paul Fortress.
New Holland Island — there were gunpowder warehouses, now renovated into cultural space, so there are ice skating in winter, grass and tennis in summer, several nice cafes and bars, good architecture, small exhibitions and cultural events.

*Sevkabel Port, in real it’s that cool, especially when the wind in not strong*

Sevkabel Port is a former factory, contemporary cultural space near the bay far from tourist routes. Murals, skaters, good bars and food, architecture exhibitions and crazy parties.
Bertgold Center has a legal access to the roof with a nice view, several cool stores with local brands, nice cafe and restaurant. Good in the evening and early morning if you like to greet the sunrise on the roof. Close to the city center.
Street Art Museum has contemporary graffiti collection on outskirts of city. Nice to visit in summer and chill on the terrace.
Do you want to see how normal Russian people spend their weekend? Go to the Elagin island, it’s a park on an island. Simple attractions on the water, classic park, beautiful manor.

Places to see St. Petersburg from the top:

Isaak Cathedral colonnade
Peter and Paul Church
Smolny Cathedral
Macaronniki restaurant
Azimuth hotel (don’t eat there; nice view, bad food)
Wynwood hotel rooftop (it’s a nice place to stay in St.P. as well — close to everything, new, well designed)

There are more, especially in the posh restaurants but I like these more.

The view from Smolny cathedral, in summer it’s even better than early spring on my pic

Places to see St. Petersburg from the water:

just take one or two trips by St. Petersburg channels to see the city from a different angle. There are no tricks with boats but I suggest renting smaller ones — it’s funnier
to watch drawbridges “open and close” from the water is beautiful, really
take a ride from city center to Petergof (lots of fontains and beautiful park) by fast boat called “Meteora” — it’s much more fun to go there by water than by bus or train

View from the Neva river to Trinity bridge

Okay, before we talk about evening programme, let’s talk about the food.

Where to Eat?

Remember that my recommendations are subjective. That’s why there won’t be a lot of posh restaurants. If you’d like to find them, simply go to Trip Advisor and select the ones you like with nice reviews :)

If you come to Russia and think of trying Russian food go to Teremok. It’s a local fast casual chain, good quality ingredients, best Russian recipes. My personal favourites are Russian pancakes with red caviar and/or salmon. Sweet ones are good too. Best located Teremok are this one or this one (choose by location which one is closer, they differ just by interior. I prefer the first one)($)
Kazbegi will introduce to you Georgian cuisine with great red wine ($-$$)
Pyshechnaya works from soviet time and they didn’t change anything since then. Literally. Probably they won’t speak English but there’s not a big menu, you just choose how much sweet Russian “pyshki” you want, pyshka is like a donut but better. They accept only cash ($)
Teplo is popular among tourists, still very nice. Cool Russian cuisine, traditional but with interesting modifications. ($$-$$$, better book in advance)
Well, St. Petersburg is also famous because of the World War II, and what helped some Russians survive was the fish named “koryushka”. You can try it in many cafes and restaurants but there is one named Koryushka which also has an amazing view of the city. It’s quite overpriced though, because of the view. ($$$, better book in advance)
DV is fantastic family cafe which has big portions and big variety of healthy food. Plus they have amazing desserts they bake themselves. ($$-$$$)
Great place to work or come for a coffee in Petrogradskaya district is Coffee3 — great coffee, nice udon and desserts, good conditions for freelance workers: comfortable chairs, big windows, comfy interior. That’s why it’s usually a bit overcrowded.

Now we go to the Asian food, if you don’t like it, I’m sorry.

Sorry, I don’t have pics with a nice food, because when I eat I’m very concentrated on food. So it’s just the pic from Coffee3.

Jack & Chan has great asian food and interesting dishes ($$-$$$, better book in advance)
Wong Car Wine — tasty asian food with not bad wine and cool interior ($$$, better book in advance)
Jolly Woo is the best vietnamese food in town ($-$$)
Umami is yammi, big portions and super nice ($$-$$$, better book in advance)
Koh Chang is Tai and very friendly ($$)
UMAO is a very small cafe with a very tasty Asian food. Take nori-salmon salad, it’s a bomb ($$, better book in advance)

Okay, what else. Do not go to the places named “Stolovaya”. Do not buy cooked food in supermarkets EXCEPT this one in the city center. If you like shawarma (it’s cheap) — you can use shawarma locator app “найди шаверму” / Naidi Shavermu (appstore, google play) they also have ratings and reviews but i’m not sure about English translation.

Where to Drink?

St. Petersburg at night looks like one big bar street. Okay not that much, but still. There are MANY places. So the best strategy for you is try 4–10 bars in a night. Traditionally, people walk to a bar, drink beer/cocktail/whiskey/etc and move to another bar. Surprising fact is we don’t really drink vodka in a bar, it’s more about people 40+. I hope logic is clear. We really don’t drink too much vodka.

Pic was made in Golitsyn Hall during one non-alcoholic night

Bertgold Center, Sevkabel Port and New Holland Island have nice bars, remember that taxi is cheap but we have drawbridges. Be careful when you go to another island after 1 am.
Drawbridges timetable.
Most foreign people in St. P. usually go to Rubinstein street. It’s a bar street. Prices are higher than other places. Bars are quite usual bars. I’m not impressed.
Another place you should know is Dumskaya street and Lomonosova street. Please don’t take your kids there in the evening. You go there if you are young, a bit crazy, fun and risky. It is not a respectable place, but many people find it fun.

Good wine places:

Probably I should say that I like wine a lot but Russia is not a wine country so don’t expect a lot from the wine bar. I prefer to buy wine and drink it at home or while walking down the river.
It’s not allowed to drink alcohol in public spaces but people usually carefully break the rules. For example, there is a legend that if you cover the bottle in a paper bag, you can drink. Actually no but sometimes it works. But if you pour wine to your coffee cup it will be fine for sure.

Okay, we came to the last section, it’s about music and dancing.

What to Do at Night

Listen to St. Petersburg jazz in “The Hat Bar”. Jazz starts from 23.00, so the only reason to go there earlier is to take good places, because the bar is small, but lovely and has its atmosphere. Also it has a good choice of whiskey and very bad choice of wine.
If you somehow choose to go Dumskaya street, try at least come around 21 and go to Chert Poberi bar to listen to young Russian rockabilly bands. Greet the best bartender in town named Dmitry and have fun.
Tanzploschadka is an informal place to dance for those who want to have fun in a company of young Russian folks. Yes, people usually come here already a bit drunk. Girls who prefer posh parties where you go wearing nice heels don’t go there.

How to Meet a Beautiful Russian Girl?

Use Tinder, it works. Or just talk politely to a cute lady in the bar.

Yes, there are superstitions about very “friendly” Russian girls who like foreign guys. That’s not very true. Everything depends on your charm, charisma and manners. If you are drunk and behave as a drunk guy who thinks that all Russian girls are super-easy, you probably will be disappointed. Girls here are truly beautiful, but not easy.

What else:

Maybe I can warn you about staff which may be rude sometimes. It’s not really often in places I mentioned here but still. I think it’s a thing about our mentality. Russian business is not always customer-oriented, unfortunately. But we are doing our best.

So. Prepare to have fun and you’ll get a fantastic experience.

If you want to ask me about anything, feel free to contact (and follow) me on Twitter or Instagram.