TRIP TO ST. PETERSBURG

ST. PETERSBURG

SMOLNY REGION

Tauride Gardens & Tauride Palace.

The Tauride Gardens (Tavrichesky sad), which house the City Children's Park (Gorodskoy detsky park), are a great place for children; the kid die rides are among the best in Russia. The view across the lake at the fine Tauride Palace (Tavrichesky dvorets), built in 1783-89 for Catherine the Great's lover Potyomkin, is a fine sight.
 

The palace takes its name from the Ukrainian region of Crimea (once called Tavria), which Potyomkin was responsible for conquering. Between 1906 and 1917 the State Duma, the Provisional Government and the Petrograd Soviet all met here; in the 1930s it housed the All-Union Agricultural Communist University. Today, it's home to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Member States of the CIS and you can't go in. The gardens are a block-and-a-half east of Chernyshevskaya metro.
 

• Flowers Exhibition Hall. One of the finest ways to escape momentarily from a St Petersburg winter is to head for the Flowers Exhibition Hall, an indoor tropical paradise just north-west of the City Children's Park at the corner of ulitsa Potyomkinskaya and ulitsa Shpalernaya. Dig the 'monster' tree to the right of the entrance.
   
• Smolny Cathedral 

PAGES OF THE PICTURE ALBUM