Live like the Tsars at St Petersburg

St Petersburg’s imperial past lives on in its architecture, the large squares and majestic palaces

We don’t consider ourselves Asian or European. We are large enough to have an identity of our own,” my English-speaking taxi driver, Elena, says as she drives my husband and I into the city from the airport. This was obviously a debate she’d had many times before. As we speed through the streets of St Petersburg, the contrasting shades of its history are striking.

Audience at the Mariinsky Theatre, a historic theatre of opera and ballet(Ashwin Pai)

The Church of Our Saviour on Spilled Blood in St Petersburg’s city centre

The dining room at Peter the Great’s original winter palace

Belosselsky Belozersky Palace, a neo-baroque palace, at the intersection of the Fontanka River and Nevsky Prospekt