From the establishment to the present day, St. Petersburg has been through lots of ups and downs in its history. This fantastic and beautiful city didn't exist until the beginning of the 18th century when Peter the Great had decided to move the capital from Moscow. Before this decision, the area that we now know as St. Petersburg was in the hand of the Swedish Empire, and Peter the Great had to fight in multiple battles to gain the land and establish his newly founded capital. He, with the help of numerous prominent Russian and foreigner figures of that time, had created a city that today is known as one of the most beautiful cities in Russia, and one of the significant travel destinations in the Russia tour. Many people travel to Russia mainly to visit St. Petersburg on their tour to Russia because of the number of attractions inside this city and its history in general.
One of the primary reasons that make the St. Petersburg tour quite crucial for travel agencies is the number of museums inside this city. One of the most famous museums in the world is the State Hermitage Museum, which is the second-largest art museum in the world after the significant Louvre in Paris, France. There's also Kunstkamera, the Russian very first museum in St. Petersburg that now houses Peter the Great Anthropology and Ethnography Museum. The Central Naval Museum, which has multiple branches all over the city, is one of the major attractions of St. Petersburg in Russia tour that many people would like to visit during their tour to Russia. The Faberge Museum is an excellent place for jewelry enthusiasts, who want to see what the House of Faberge had made for the Imperial family. The Museum of Political History and the Museum of History of Religion are two major historical museums in the city, in which one can learn about the history of politics and religion of Russia and the world in each of them during their tour to Russia.
Those examples were only a small part of what you can get from St. Petersburg museums. Besides museums, you can still have lots of fun on your tour to Russia if you visit St. Petersburg. There you can go shopping; visit beautiful places in St. Petersburg, such as gardens and parks; watch an art performance, especially Russian ballet since St. Petersburg is the capital of it. Also, many more places, including cultural centers and fun activities such as canal riding and exploring the rooftops of the historical center of St. Petersburg, that you can try on your tour to Russia. In addition to those, St. Petersburg can be fascinating for loads of travelers on the Russia tour as a city. Many people admire the architecture of St. Petersburg, as well as its harmony. Among tourists who travel to Russia, some people find the history of St. Petersburg as a city much more fascinating than anything else on the Russia tour, and they have lots of options to discover more about it inside the city. Peter and Paul fortress is not only one of the major attractions of St. Petersburg tour, but it also houses the headquarter of the State Museum of the History of St. Petersburg, which has seven significant branches. One of which is the former estate of Rumyantsev family on English Embankment.
The magnificent Rumyantsev mansion was initially constructed for Grand Duke Mikhail Golitsyn in the 1740s. When Nikolay Rumyantsev, who was a relative of Golitsyn, acquired the estate at the beginning of the 19th century, he commissioned Vasiliy Glinka to reconstruct the mansion for him. Although Glinka had kept the original layout of the building, he entirely changed the interior design and the façade of the palace. He added a magnificent 12-column portico to the façade and decorated it with a high relief of Apollo on Parnassus, which was surrounded by Mnemosyne and the nine Muses. Count Nikolay Rumyantsev was an intense collector and advocate of art. He and his family only occupied three rooms inside their vast mansion, and the rest of the house was dedicated to his massive collection of books, pieces of art, paintings, government decrees, coin collection, medals, and antiques.
Part of Rumyantsev's enormous collection was a library of 28500 books, including several scientific papers from the 18th and the early 19th century, multiple travel journals, and Russian chronicles, which formed the basis for the Russian National Library. After Nikolay's death, his younger brother, who was also an intense collector, had continued his work and created one of the most completed private collection in St. Petersburg. However, due to the lack of public museums in Moscow, Rumyantsev's collections had transferred to Moscow in 1861, which tourists can visit on their tour to Russia in the Rumyantsev Museum of Moscow and Moscow Public Museum. In 1938, the Rumyantsev mansion was given to the Museum of the History and Development of Leningrad, which was housed in Anichkov Palace until then. It was not until 2003 that the city decided to get the original interior of the mansion back. Currently, tourists who visit Rumyantsev mansion will see the palace on their tour to Russia as it was during the 19th century when Nikolay Rumyantsev had lived there.
Currently, Rumyantsev mansion belonged to the State Museum of History of St. Petersburg, in which you can find about 4000 exhibits charting various periods of the history of St. Petersburg. Though part of the museum is dedicated to the horrifying time of second world war in St. Petersburg and 900 days of the siege of Leningrad, we at the Star Travel Group suggest people who want to learn the complete history of those time on their tour to Russia visiting The Museum of Defense and Siege of Leningrad on Solyanoy Pereulok. The history of the museum itself and the Rumyantsev family are among other things that tourists will learn on their Russia tour if they visit this museum. This museum also hosts several temporary exhibitions, in which contemporary artists from Russia and other nationalities would display their work as it was a tradition in the Rumyantsev mansion.
St. Petersburg is a fascinating city for history enthusiasts as well as people who would love to learn about Russian art, culture, and architecture. We at the Star Travel Group have multiple plans for our tour to St. Petersburg, which you can learn more about on our weblog. You can also check our tips and advice on how to travel to Russia as well as our top choices on the best shopping centers in Russia, the best Russian traditional meals that you can try, and top Russia attractive places that you should visit on your travel to Russia.
