THREE hundred years ago, the Tsar of Russia, Peter the Great, built a fortress on the north bank of the River Neva where it flows into the Baltic. Then work began on a glittering new city on the opposite bank - St Petersburg. Neoclassical palaces took shape along grand avenues and elegant bridges arched over winding canals.
Nature was not entirely tamed, however: early aristocrats settling into the new metropolis lived in fear of the wolves that would roam the streets at night; Peter himself nearly drowned in a flood. Today, summer visitors battle mosquitoes which breed
in the flooded basements of the city's houses. But while their cellars may be rotting, the buildings' façades are spectacular. And they never look better than during the White Nights - a six-week period during midsummer when it doesn't get truly dark - and the yellow, red and imperial-blue walls of the city glow in the golden evening sunlight.
As the home town of Vladimir Putin, Russia's president, St Petersburg has benefited from a ruler's patronage, particularly prior to the G8 summit of 2006, when huge sums were spent on facelifts - both for historic buildings and the nouveau-riche of post-communist Russia. New money is in the air generally - leggy girls in huge sunglasses parade along Nevsky Prospect or flirt with sailors in the gardens beside the golden spire of the Admiralty. There are glittering new malls of designer shops behind glass walls that are just as intimidating as those of Peter's fortress. Restaurants dish up world-class cuisine and nightclubs occupy airy roof-terraces, obscure basements, moored barges or even tents on the Neva's beaches.
Despite the mosquitoes, summer is a great time to visit. During the White Nights it is traditional to toast the raising of all the Neva's bridges in the early hours to allow shipping to pass. You can crack open a bottle of shampanskoe, Russian champagne, and admire the bridges as they swing up into the air, their still-lit lampposts sticking out horizontally, as huge boats surge past under the velvety-blue sky.
It's not so great if you're on the opposite side of the river from your bed. We found bargain accommodation in a rented apartment north of the river, just past the fortress. But every night out was brought to an abrupt end by the realisation that the bridges were about to go up and we risked being stranded until 5am. Of course, everyone realises the same thing at the same time, and that's when the race starts. Sprinting for the bridge is a better option than waiting for a cab - at 2am, the traffic jams are worse than at rush-hour.
If you miss your bridge, you'll have to persuade a (possibly tipsy) taxi driver to speed like crazy to the next crossing before it too is raised. On one such journey, I realised the taxi was going the wrong way. Summoning all the Russian I knew from Cold War thrillers, I yelled, "Net! Net! Troitsky Most!" - the name of our bridge. The taxi swerved around, my friends open-mouthed with admiration, and we made it safely home.
I later learned a few more words of Russian: spasibo for 'thank you', nastrovya for 'cheers'. A friend and I shopped at a fruit stall by pointing and smiling. We'd got oranges and apples, then pointed to a mound of plums. "Slivy," said the fruit-seller, clearly hoping to have us fluent by the end of the day.
"Slivovitz!" we both cried, remembering the name of a plum brandy. The fruit-seller joined in our laughter on realising our only vocabulary was alcohol-related.
The best way to get a feel for the city is on a boat tour. From your water-level seat, the palaces of the Fontanka and Moyka rivers, the Winter Moat and Griboedov Canal are at their most imposing. The Neva suddenly seems huge and very wide as you sail from the mouth of a canal on to its choppy expanse, then serenity returns as you glide past the Summer Gardens - a welcome green space in a dusty city.
Particularly astonishing from a boat's-eye view is the Church of Our Saviour on Spilled Blood. Its spiky blue, white, yellow and green domes look more like pineapples than Orthodox onion domes. Jutting out over the Griboedov Canal, it owes both its odd position and its name to being built on the site of Tsar Alexander II's assassination in 1881. One bomber made an attempt as Alexander's carriage passed the Mikhailovsky Gardens but only succeeded in injuring himself. Foolishly, the Tsar stopped to berate the revolutionary, only to be caught by a second blast.
Next to the church is a market of tourist trinkets ranging from the hideous (Putin or Harry Potter matryoshka dolls) to the charming (wooden Christmas decorations and porcelain from the Lomonosov factory). The adjacent bridge is a key spot for wedding photographs, so the gutters are, rather decadently, littered with empty champagne bottles.
From there, take a short walk along the curving River Moyka - admiring the view down the Winter Moat, perhaps stopping at the museum of Pushkin's Apartment - until you reach the epic expanse of Dvortsovaya Ploshchad (Palace Square). To the north-west lies the sea-green grandeur of the Winter Palace and adjoining Hermitage Museum; to the south-east are the curving yellow walls of the General Staff building; at the centre an angel tops the 47.5m-high marble Alexander Column.
The Hermitage is the most spectacular legacy of Catherine the Great. To begin with it housed just her personal art collection, but it soon expanded, eventually filling about 350 rooms with everything from ancient Roman jewellery to paintings by Rembrandt, Picasso and Monet. Avoid the guided tours - most allow just three seconds each for selected masterpieces. If you target your favourite artists you will be pleasantly diverted - en route to Van Dyck, I ended up looking at the 'trophy art' rooms, containing works by Renoir, Gauguin and Degas, which were taken from Germany in the aftermath of the Second World War and whose ownership is still disputed.
The gallery rooms are astonishing in themselves, and fitted out with incredible opulence. Dazzling chandeliers, baroque statues, pastel frescos, gilded mirrors, towering columns... the effect can be overwhelming. And while imperial splendour is splendid, there's nothing quite like the fresh breeze along the banks of the Neva to clear your head afterwards.
Fact file
St Petersburg
BritishAirways(www.ba.com, 0870 850 9850) has return flights from Edinburgh and Glasgow (via Heathrow) to St Petersburg starting at £595.
The Pushka Inn (www.pushkainn.ru) has doubles from £118 per room per night (B&B). The Kempinski Hotel (www.kempinski.com) has doubles from £264.
Before you travel, you'll need a visa from the Russian Consulate (58 Melville Street, Edinburgh EH3 7HF, 0131 225 7098)
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The full article contains 1443 words and appears in Scotland On Sunday newspaper.
