The Yusupovs were richer than the Romanovs, and their palace on the Moika shows it. It is also one of the few St Petersburg palaces to keep not just its walls but its furnishings through the revolution and the war. Then there is the cellar, where on the night of 17 December 1916 Grigory Rasputin was murdered, two months before the empire fell.
The state rooms. Five generations of the family lived here from 1830 until 1917. The architect Andrei Mikhailov reshaped the house in the 1830s into a run of reception rooms: the White Column Hall, the Moorish drawing room with its fountain and Arabic inscriptions, the Nicholas Hall, tapestries and a winter garden. The imperial family was received here.
The private theatre. A jewel-box rococo theatre inside the house, with gold, painted decoration and velvet, boxes and an orchestra pit. Chaliapin and Liszt performed on its stage, and concerts are still held here.
The Murder of Rasputin exhibition. The basement dining room is laid out as it was that night, with wax figures, original furniture and documents. Your guide follows the evening step by step: the cyanide cakes that did not work, the shot, the chase across the courtyard, and the body in the Malaya Nevka. The conspirators were Prince Felix Yusupov, Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich and the politician Vladimir Purishkevich. Much of the story comes only from their own, contradictory accounts, so your guide separates the documented facts from Yusupov’s later embellishments.
You also hear where the Yusupov fortune came from, the family legend of a curse, and how Felix lived on in Paris until 1967 and sued Hollywood over a film about himself.
Anyone fascinated by the last years of the Romanovs, lovers of palace interiors who want something more intimate than the Hermitage, and travellers looking for a compact visit that fits around other plans.
The Yusupov Palace
| People | Price per person |
|---|---|
| 1 | $273 |
| 2 | $136 |
| 3 | $91 |
| 4 | $68 |
| 5 | $55 |
| 6 | $45 |
| 7 | $39 |
| 8 | $34 |
| People | Price per person |
|---|---|
| 9 | $30 |
| 10 | $27 |
| 11 | $25 |
| 12 | $23 |
| 13 | $21 |
| 14 | $19 |
| 15 | $18 |
| 16 | $17 |
| People | Free places | Price per person |
|---|---|---|
| 10–14 | +1 | $27 |
| 15–24 | +2 | $18 |
| 25–34 | +2 | $11 |
| 35–39 | +3 | $8 |
| 40+ | +4 | $7 |
Group rates apply from 10 people.
Skim across the Gulf of Finland by Meteor hydrofoil in forty minutes, then walk Peterhof's Lower Park with its 147 fountains. Boat and park tickets included.
A three-and-a-half-hour drive through the centre, ending on Hare Island where the city was founded in 1703, with entry to the Romanov burial cathedral.
A private two-hour walk through the Mikhailovsky Palace: a thousand years of Russian art, from medieval icons to The Ninth Wave and Repin's Barge Haulers.
Visit the Konstantinovsky Palace at Strelna, a working state residence that hosted the G8 and G20 summits, by car with a guide and entry arranged.