8 Best Sights in Vasilievsky Island, St. Petersburg

This bit of land (the name means "arrow" or "spit") affords a dazzling view of the Winter Palace and the Peter and Paul Fortress and reveals the city's triumphant rise from a watery outpost to an elegant metropolis. Seen against the backdrop of the Neva, the brightly colored houses lining the embankment seem like children's toys—the building blocks of a bygone aristocracy. They stand at the water's edge, seemingly supported not by the land beneath them but by the panorama of the city behind them. Gazing here is a great way to appreciate the scope of Peter the Great's vision for his country. The view also makes clear how careful the city's founders were to build their city not despite the Neva but around and with it. The Strelka is very popular with wedding couples, who traditionally come to visit the sight on their wedding day and often break a bottle of champagne on the ground here.

This fine example of Russian baroque is painted bright azure with white trim and stands out from the surrounding classically designed architecture. Also known as the Kunstkammer (from the German Kunst, "art," and Kammer, "chamber") and the Chamber of Curiosities, the building was commissioned in 1718 to house the collection of oddities Peter the Great gathered during his travels. It was completed in 1734, destroyed by fire in 1747, and almost entirely rebuilt later. Today it houses the Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography but still includes a room with Peter's original collection, a truly bizarre assortment ranging from rare precious stones to preserved human organs and fetuses. The museum is enormously popular, so buy your entrance ticket early in the day.

Two of St. Petersburg's more magnificent landmarks stand on the landing in front of the Repin Institute, leading down to the Neva. These twin statues, which date from the 15th century BC, were discovered during an excavation at Thebes in the 1820s. They were apparently created during the era of Pharaoh Amenhotep III, whose features they supposedly bear. It took the Russians more than a year to transport the sphinxes from Thebes.

Alexander Menshikov (1673–1729), St. Petersburg's first governor, was one of Russia's more flamboyant characters. A close friend of Peter the Great (often called his favorite), Menshikov rose from humble beginnings as a street vendor, reportedly getting his start when he sold a cabbage pie to the tsar—or so the legend goes. He eventually became one of Russia's most powerful statesmen, infamous for his corruption and political maneuvering. He's said to have incited Peter the Great against his son Alexei and later attempted to take power from Peter II by arranging the young tsar's engagement to his daughter. The marriage didn't take place, and Peter exiled Menshikov and his family to Siberia.

Menshikov's palace, the first stone building in St. Petersburg, was the city's most luxurious building at the time of its completion in 1720. Although only a portion of the original palace has survived, it easily conveys a sense of Menshikov's love of luxury. Particularly noteworthy are the restored bedrooms: the walls and ceilings are completely covered with handcrafted ceramic tiles that Peter the Great allegedly sent home from Delft for himself but were appropriated by Menshikov. After Menshikov's exile, his palace was turned over to a military training school and was significantly altered over the years. In June 1917 it served as the site of the First Congress of Russian Soviets. The Menshikov Palace is a branch of the Hermitage Museum. In addition to the restored living quarters of the Menshikov family, there's an exhibit devoted to early-18th-century Russian culture.

Erected on strictly classical lines between 1783 and 1789, the original building of the Russian Academy of Sciences is considered to be Giacomo Quarenghi's grandest design, with an eight-column portico, a pediment, and a double staircase. The administrative offices of the academy, founded in 1724 by Peter the Great, were transferred to Moscow in 1934 and the building now houses the St. Petersburg branch of the academy.

Tsar Alexander I founded this university in 1819, and today it's one of Russia's leading institutions of higher learning with an enrollment of more than 20,000. Russian president Vladimir Putin and Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev graduated from the university's law faculty. Much of the campus dates to the 18th-century reign of Peter the Great. The bright red baroque building on the right (if you're walking west along the embankment) is the Twelve Colleges Building, designed by Domenico Trezzini and completed in 1741. The next building in the university complex is the Rector's Wing, where a plaque attests that the great Russian poet Alexander Blok (d. 1921) was born here in 1880. The third building along the embankment is a former palace built for Peter II (1715–30), Peter the Great's grandson, who lived and ruled only briefly.

Swiss architect Thomas de Thomon designed these columns, which were erected between 1805 and 1810 in honor of the Russian fleet. The monument takes its name from the Latin rostrum, meaning "prow." Modeled on similar memorials in ancient Rome, the columns are decorated with ships' prows; sculptures at the base depict Russia's main waterways, the Dnieper, Volga, Volkhov, and Neva rivers. Although the columns originally served as lighthouses—until 1855 this was St. Petersburg's commercial harbor—they are now lit only on special occasions, such as City Day (May 27). The columns were designed to frame the architectural centerpiece of this side of the embankment—the old Stock Exchange, which now holds the Naval Museum.

An unusual collection of more than 30,000 species includes a mammoth, now stuffed, recovered from Siberia in 1901, and it joins tigers, foxes, bears, goats, and many kinds of birds. The museum also has a large collection of butterflies and other insects.