An indispensable literary companion that vividly evokes the life of St Petersburg in the voices of both residents and visitors through the centuries

'So vivid a book that you need not hasten to travel there yourself; and certainly should not hasten when you arrive' - Financial Times


'Enthralling reading . . . a well balanced selection that affords marvellous glimpses of its grandeur and its grimness, its magnificence and its horrors' Daily Telegraph

Featuring a vivid selection from biographies, novels, letters, poems, diaries and memoirs, this traveller's reader traces the story of St Petersburg from earliest times. Readers can observe the city's foundation by Peter the Great on the marshy shores of the Gulf of Finland, see how literature and the arts flowered during the nineteenth century, and observe the often violent turning points of its more recent history.

First-hand accounts tell of the 1825 Decembrists, standing in the snow in Senate Square refusing to accept Nicholas I as Tsar, being shot down where they stood; of the imprisonment of Dostoevsky and the duel that killed Pushkin; of the last moments of the mad Emperor Paul; and of the storming of the Winter Palace by the crowd in 1917.

Kelly expertly presents St Petersburg's rich, complex history for the modern reader, whether a visitor to the city, or an armchair traveller.

Even for those who may never visit Leningrad, this book will be a source of enjoyment and interest