Mikhailovsky Garden

The State Russian Museum (Russian: Государственный Русский музей), formerly the Russian Museum of His Imperial Majesty Alexander III (Russian: Русский Музей Императора Александра III), on Arts Square in Saint Petersburg, is the world's largest depository of Russian fine art. It is also one of the largest art museums in the world with total area over 30 hectares. In 2021 it attracted 2,260,231 visitors, ranking second on list of most-visited art museums in the world.

The Mikhailovsky Palace (Russian: Михайловский дворец) is a grand ducal palace in Saint Petersburg, Russia. It is located on Arts Square and is an example of Empire style neoclassicism. The palace currently houses the main building of the Russian Museum and displays its collections of early, folk, eighteenth, and nineteenth century art. It was originally planned as the residence of Grand Duke Michael Pavlovich, the youngest son of Emperor Paul I. Work had not yet begun on the Mikhailovsky Palace, when Paul was overthrown and killed in a palace coup that brought Michael's elder brother to the throne as Alexander I. The new emperor resurrected the idea for a new palace by the time Michael was 22, and plans were drawn up by Carlo Rossi to develop a new site in Saint Petersburg. The palace, built in the neoclassic style, became the centrepiece of an ensemble that took in new streets and squares. It was lavishly decorated, with the interiors costing more than the main construction work. It was gifted to Grand Duke Michael and his new wife, Grand Duchess Elena Pavlovna, by the Emperor in 1825. The grand ducal family had comfortable apartments furnished to their individual tastes. Grand Duke Michael carried out some of his military duties there, while his wife hosted salons that brought together many of the leading members of Saint Petersburg society and culture. The Grand Duchess continued this lifestyle after her husband's death in 1849, until her own death in 1873. The palace was passed on to the couple's daughter, Grand Duchess Catherine Mikhailovna. Over the years of their residency, the family renovated and refurbished the palace's rooms in keeping with contemporary tastes. By the time of Grand Duchess Catherine's death in 1894, the staterooms were no longer in regular use—the family resided for the most part in the palace's wings. With the death of the Grand Duchess, the palace was inherited by her children, who were members of the family of the Dukes of Mecklenburg-Strelitz. Concerned about the palace passing out of the Romanov family, Emperor Alexander III decided to buy it back for the state. He died before this could be arranged, but the negotiations were carried out on behalf of his son Emperor Nicholas II, by Minister of Finance Sergei Witte. Nicholas gave it to the newly established Russian Museum, in honour of his father, with the remit that it collect and display domestic art. The palace was extensively renovated to fit its new role, with some of the interiors retained. One wing was demolished and rebuilt, later becoming the Russian Museum of Ethnography, while a new extension, the Benois wing, was added in the 1910s.

The Rossi Pavilion (Russian: Павильон Росси) is a pavilion on the bank of the Moyka River in the Mikhailovsky Garden in Saint Petersburg. It was designed by architect Carlo Rossi in the early 1820s and built in 1825 during his redevelopment of the garden. The site now occupied by the pavilion was previously the location of one of the city's early imperial palaces, the Golden Mansion of Peter the Great's wife, Empress Catherine. The palace was demolished on the orders of Catherine the Great in 1768, and was only redeveloped in the early 1820s as part of the construction of the Mikhailovsky Palace complex. As part of the new ensemble, the gardens between the palace and the Moyka River were laid out in the style of an English landscape garden. The pavilion, designed by Rossi in the Neoclassical style, was built to provide an area for pleasure and refreshment overlooking the river, with a pier where boats could moor. The pavilion survived the Soviet period and was part of the large-scale restoration of the garden in the early 2000s. As part of this work, a bust of Carlo Rossi was placed in the pavilion.

The Neva Yacht Club (Yacht-club Neva or simply Club Neva) is a sailing club located in Saint Petersburg, Russia, close to the Neva River. It was founded in 1718 and was re-established as a club in 1958. It claims to be the first and oldest yacht club in Russia and even in the world, though this is challenged by the Royal Cork Yacht Club in Ireland.

The Russian Museum of Ethnography (Российский этнографический музей) is a museum in St. Petersburg that houses a collection of about 500,000 items relating to the ethnography, or cultural anthropology, of peoples of the former Russian Empire and the Soviet Union.The museum was set up in 1902 as the ethnographic department of the Russian Museum. It is housed in a purpose-built Neoclassical building erected between 1902 and 1913 to Vasily Svinyin's design in the proximity of the Mikhailovsky Palace (which accommodates the art collection of the Russian Museum). It occupies the place of the eastern service wing, the stables and the laundry of the palace. The museum's first exhibits were the gifts received by the Russian Tsars from peoples of Imperial Russia. These were supplemented by regular expeditions to various parts of the Russian Empire which began in 1901. Further exhibits were purchased by Nicholas II of Russia and other members of his family (as state financing was not enough to purchase new exhibits). A collection of Buddhist religious objects was acquired for the museum by Prince Esper Ukhtomsky. Prince Tenishev, a wealthy industrialist, donated to the museum the archives of his private ethnographic bureau that had been documenting the life of Russian peasants since the 19th century.The collection was not officially opened to the general public until 1923 and was not detached from the Russian Museum until 1934. When the Museum of the Peoples of the USSR in Moscow (successor to the Dashkov Museum) was shut down in 1948, its collections were transferred to the Ethnographic Museum in Leningrad. This museum should not be confused with the much older Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography, popularly known as the Kunstkamera.

The Arts Square (Russian: площадь Искусств, Ploshchad Iskusstv) is an open public square in the center of Saint Petersburg, Russia.

The Rossi Bridge (Russian: Мост Росси) is a cast-iron bridge in the Mikhailovsky Garden in Saint Petersburg. It was designed by architect Carlo Rossi during his redevelopment of the garden in the early 1820s, and built in 1825. Built to span the neck between two large ponds in the east of the garden, the bridge was constructed of cast-iron spans supported by brick abutments lined with limestone. The fencing and pedestals making up the parapet are also of cast iron. Little survives of the original construction details, with the exception of an architectural plan from 1826. The bridge and ponds suffered during the twentieth century, with one of the ponds being filled in, leaving the bridge half buried in earth. Restoration works in the early 2000s restored the ponds and bridge back to their original appearance. Today the bridge is the only one in Saint Petersburg to retain most of its original cast-iron parts.

Lower Swan Bridge (Russian: Нижний Лебяжий мост) is a single-span stone bridge in Saint Petersburg crossing the Swan Canal at its junction with the Moyka River. The bridge is one of two which cross the Swan Canal, the other being the Upper Swan Bridge at the canal's northern end, at the confluence with the Neva River. The site of the Lower Swan Bridge was originally occupied by a wooden drawbridge built to the design of Harmen van Bol'es in the 1730s, replaced by a fixed bridge by 1760, and for a time known as the First Tsaritsyn Bridge, after the Tsaritsyn Meadow, now the Field of Mars. The wooden bridge was replaced with a stone one in the 1830s, but the speed of its construction led to significant problems, with the vaulting in danger of collapse. Numerous repairs and renovations have taken place over the bridge's existence, before finally being given a degree of stability after work in the 1920s, which retained the original appearance. Further restoration took place in 2002. Today the bridge links the Field of Mars with the Summer Garden at the Swan Canal's junction with the Moyka, close to the Mikhailovsky Castle.

Saint Petersburg Philharmonia (Russian: Санкт-Петербургская филармония) is a music society located in Saint Petersburg, Russia, and is the name of the building where it is housed. Also there is another one building of Saint Petersburg Philharmonic Society: Malii Zal (Small Hall). The location of the Small Hall is in the city centre. The society now hosts two symphony orchestras: Saint Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra and Saint Petersburg Academic Symphony Orchestra.

The Mikhailovsky Theatre (Russian: Миха́йловский теа́тр) is one of Russia's oldest opera and ballet houses. It was founded in 1833 and is situated in a historical building on 1, Arts Square in Saint Petersburg. It is named after Grand Duke Michael Pavlovich of Russia. Since 1989, it has borne the Modest Mussorgsky name. Since 1991 it has officially been named The St Petersburg Mussorgsky State Academic Opera and Ballet Theatre—Mikhailovsky Theatre.

The Field of Mars (Russian: Ма́рсово по́ле, tr. Marsovo Polye) is a large square in the centre of Saint Petersburg. Over its long history it has been alternately a meadow, park, pleasure garden, military parade ground, revolutionary pantheon and public meeting place. The space now covered by the Field of Mars was initially an open area of swampy land between the developments around the Admiralty, and the imperial residence in the Summer Garden. It was drained by the digging of canals in the first half of the eighteenth century, and initially served as parkland, hosting a tavern, post office and the royal menagerie. Popular with the nobility, several leading figures of Petrine society established their town houses around the space in the mid eighteenth century. Under Peter the Great it was laid out with paths for walking and riding, and hosted military parades and festivals. During this period, and under Peter's successors it was called the "Empty Meadow" and the "Great Meadow". Empresses Anna and Elizabeth built their Summer Palaces here, and it was redeveloped into a pleasure park with pavilions and walkways for promenading. Theatres were built on the land during this period, and with the imperial patronage, the square became the "Tsaritsyn Meadow". New townhouses and palaces developed along the square's boundaries and across its frontage onto the Neva. During the reigns of Emperor Paul I and his son Alexander I, the square took on more of a martial purpose, with the construction of military monuments in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. In acknowledgement of this, and its role in hosting military reviews and parades, it was renamed the "Field of Mars" in 1805. The square was part of the further development of the area by architect Carlo Rossi in the late 1810s, involving new buildings around the perimeter, and the extension of streets and frontages. During the nineteenth century the Field of Mars alternately hosted large military reviews, and public festivals. Sports and other leisure activities took place into the early twentieth century. After February 1917 the square became the ceremonial burial place of a number of those killed during the February Revolution. Construction of a memorial, the Monument to the Fighters of the Revolution, took place between 1917 and 1919 at the centre of the Field of Mars. The monument became the centre of an early pantheon of those who died in the service of the nascent Soviet state, and burials of some of the dead of the October Revolution and the Russian Civil War, as well as prominent figures in the government, took place between 1917 and 1933. Between 1918 and 1944 the Field of Mars was renamed the "Victims of the Revolution Square". The square was laid out with vegetable gardens to help feed the city during the siege of Leningrad, and also hosted an artillery battery. Restorations took place after the war, including the installation of the first eternal flame in Russia. In the post-Soviet period the Field of Mars has become a popular location for demonstrations and protests.

The Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood (Russian: Церковь Спаса на Крови, Tserkovʹ Spasa na Krovi) is a Russian Orthodox church in Saint Petersburg, Russia which currently functions as a secular museum and church at the same time. The structure was constructed between 1883 and 1907. It is one of Saint Petersburg's major attractions. The church was erected on the site where political nihilists assassinated Emperor Alexander II in March 1881. The church was funded by the Romanov imperial family in honor of Alexander II, and the suffix "on [Spilled] Blood" refers to his assassination.