Kronstadt is a fortress town on Kotlin Island, put there by Peter I to close the sea route to his new capital. For three hundred years it was a closed military town, with civilians barred until 1996. This is the extended version of the tour: as well as the town and the Naval Cathedral, you reach Fort Rif at the western tip of the island, which was entirely inaccessible until 2020.
The drive takes about an hour and a half: we go along the northern arm of the dam that protects St Petersburg from flooding, past the forts standing out in the gulf.
Fort Rif — built between 1909 and 1912 at the westernmost point of Kotlin, with three batteries: a central one with four ten-inch guns and two flanking ones with six-inch guns. Before that it was an engineering proving ground, where between 1889 and 1897 concrete fortifications were shelled with artillery to work out the methodology that became the basis of Russian fortification. In March 1921 participants in the Kronstadt revolt escaped across the ice to Finland by way of Rif. The military left in 2014, and since 2020 it has been open as a museum. Inside are the longest vaulted underground galleries in the Kronstadt fortified district, along with barracks and casemates; the fort forms part of a UNESCO World Heritage site. A field kitchen operates on site. It is cold inside all year round — bring warm clothes.
St Nicholas Naval Cathedral — the principal church of the Russian Navy. Vasily Kosyakov built it between 1903 and 1913 in the neo-Byzantine style, following the structure of Hagia Sophia: a dome 26.7 metres across and a height of 52 metres. It is a memorial to every rank of the fleet killed in the line of duty: the walls carry black and white marble tablets with their names. Closed in 1929 and converted into a cinema, it was returned to the church in 2005 and restored for its centenary in 2013.
Anchor Square — the monument to Admiral Makarov, an Eternal Flame in a split granite pyramid, and the Makarov Bridge over Peter’s Ravine, assembled using shipbuilding techniques.
The Kronstadt tide gauge — a measuring staff by the Blue Bridge, in service since 1840; every absolute height and depth in the country is reckoned from its zero mark. Beside it is the pavilion with the recording tide gauge that Yuri Gagarin called “the navel of the Earth”.
The monument to the stickleback — a small fish on the wall of the Bypass Canal: during the Siege it was this fish, held to be inedible before the war, that kept the town’s people alive.
Peter’s Dry Dock and the Dock Bridge — a structure of the first half of the eighteenth century where up to ten ships could be repaired at once, and a rare bridge that was not raised but swung aside.
Scenes of the town — the Admiralty, moved here from central St Petersburg by Catherine II, the Bypass Canal with its provision stores, the Dutch Kitchen, the Merchant Harbour, warships in the Middle Harbour, the Andrew Garden on the site of John of Kronstadt’s church, the monument to the cauldron, the Wishing Tree, Menshikov’s Italian Palace and Peter’s Park.
Fort Rif admits organised groups only — you cannot walk the underground galleries on your own. We take that on: the tickets, the timing and the escort.
And Kronstadt itself can be driven through in an hour with nothing understood: half the town is stories you cannot see. Why the island is called Kotlin, what happened here in March 1921, how John of Kronstadt became the unofficial patriarch of the Russian church, why the bridge was swung aside rather than raised, and what herons, hares and peacocks are doing in a naval cathedral.
The tour is private: you travel as your own party with your own guide and driver, and are collected from your hotel or apartment. At the fort, the visit takes place in a small group.
To be booked
| People | Price per person |
|---|---|
| 1 | $610 |
| 2 | $304 |
| 3 | $210 |
| 4 | $166 |
| 5 | $141 |
| 6 | $125 |
| 7 | $113 |
| 8 | $105 |
| People | Price per person |
|---|---|
| 9 | $98 |
| 10 | $93 |
| 11 | $89 |
| 12 | $86 |
| 13 | $83 |
| 14 | $81 |
| 15 | $79 |
| 16 | $77 |
Please note — even in warm weather, bring warm clothing; it is cold inside the fort
Jewish St Petersburg: the Grand Choral Synagogue in the Moorish style, the history of the community in the imperial capital, its bankers and philanthropists — and how it lives today.
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.