Jews were forbidden to settle beyond the Pale of Settlement, and St Petersburg lay outside it. A community formed in the capital nonetheless — out of those to whom residence rights were granted by education, membership of a merchant guild, a trade or state service. It was a most unusual community: small but exceptionally influential, where bankers and industrialists lived alongside craftsmen and retired soldiers of Nicholas I’s army.
The walk goes through Kolomna — the district around Theatre Square where the community established itself and where its principal building stands. Two and a half hours on foot.
The Grand Choral Synagogue — the second largest in Europe, built between 1883 and 1893 to a design by Ivan Shaposhnikov and Lev Bakhman, with contributions from Vladimir Stasov and Nikolai Benois. The Moorish style was a deliberate choice: it invoked the golden age of Jewish culture in Spain. It was paid for by the community, above all by Baron Horace Günzburg and the entrepreneur Samuel Polyakov. The vestibule has a remarkable acoustic: a whisper carries more than ten metres.
The Small (wedding) Synagogue — where the community prays daily and where weddings are held.
The community’s houses and addresses — the mansions of the Günzburgs and other families who funded hospitals, schools and scholarships; the buildings that housed Jewish schools and printing houses.
Kolomna — in itself one of the quietest and best-preserved districts of old St Petersburg: Theatre Square, the Mariinsky Theatre, the Conservatoire, canals without tourists.
This is a tour about people and the mechanics of life rather than about architecture: how residence rights in the capital were obtained, what people did for a living, and why this particular community produced, at one and the same time, the country’s greatest bankers and entrepreneurs, world-famous artists and musicians — and its most celebrated revolutionaries. Your guide explains where that combination came from and how it followed from the restrictions the community lived under.
The twentieth century is a subject of its own: revolution, emigration, the purges, the Siege, the post-war years. And so is how the community lives now: the synagogue is active, with schools, kosher establishments and cultural programmes attached to it.
The tour is private and on foot. A dress code applies inside the synagogue: men need a head covering (provided at the entrance), women covered shoulders and knees. On Saturdays and Jewish holidays the interior cannot be visited.
Theatre Square, the Rimsky-Korsakov monument
| People | Price per person |
|---|---|
| 1 | $75 |
| 2 | $37 |
| 3 | $26 |
| 4 | $20 |
| 5 | $17 |
| 6 | $15 |
| People | Price per person |
|---|---|
| 7 | $14 |
| 8 | $13 |
| 9 | $12 |
| 10–12 | $11 |
| 13–16 | $10 |
The essentials of St Petersburg in three hours: Palace and Senate squares, the Summer Garden and the Field of Mars, the Spit of Vasilyevsky Island and the place the city began — told through stories rather than dates.
An hour along the rivers and canals with your own guide: the Venice of the North from the water, the bridges and their superstitions, Chizhik-Pyzhik, and the floods that reshaped the city.
On foot through the imperial capital: Palace Square, Nevsky Prospect and Gostiny Dvor, the well-yards behind the grand facades, and doughnuts in a historic cafe — two hours through the heart of St Petersburg.
A city tour of St Petersburg by car with a visit to the Peter and Paul Fortress: Nevsky Prospect, Palace Square, the Spit of Vasilyevsky Island, the cruiser Aurora — and the island where the city began.