The Rivers and Canals of St Petersburg

St Petersburg was built to be lived in from the water. The canals drained the marsh and served as streets, and Peter I made citizens learn to sail. An hour on the rivers and canals is the quickest way to understand how the city works. On the water, the embankments rise like canyon walls, palaces show the fronts their guests once arrived at, and the bridges pass just overhead.

The difference here is the guide. Instead of a recorded commentary for forty people, you have someone talking to your party alone.

The route

The Fontanka, the Moika and the Griboyedov Canal. The historic centre from the inside: the Summer Garden, the Mikhailovsky Castle and the Church on Spilled Blood seen from the water, with palaces and tenement houses rising straight from the canal edge.

Bridges and their legends. The city has more than three hundred bridges, and almost every one has a story: one where couples kiss, one where you make a wish, and one that Valery Chkalov is said to have flown under. Your guide separates fact from film myth.

Chizhik-Pyzhik. The city’s smallest monument, 11 centimetres of bronze on the Fontanka wall by the 1st Engineer Bridge, placed there in 1994. It has been stolen seven times and always returned. Landing a coin on its ledge is said to bring luck.

Out onto the Neva. The boat comes out into open water for the grand panorama: the Spit of Vasilyevsky Island and the Rostral Columns, the Peter and Paul Fortress, and the Winter Palace from the angle it was designed to be seen from.

On the way you hear about the city’s floods, more than three hundred of them in three centuries. The worst, in November 1824, raised the water by 421 centimetres. The flood barrier finally closed the city off in 2011.

Good to know

• The trip lasts about one hour on the water, at a time agreed with you.
• The boat trip and your guide are included; meals are not.
• Boats run only during the navigation season, roughly late April to mid-November.
• The tour is private, for your party only, and fits easily into any day.

Who it suits

Anyone with a spare hour, first-time visitors who want a quick, memorable overview, families with children, and travellers who have walked the centre and now want to see it from a different angle.