5 Best Sights in St. Petersburg, Russia

You can't miss St. Petersburg's main army museum—just look for the hundreds of pieces of artillery on the grounds outside. Exhibits have a distinctly Soviet penchant for detail—if you're interested in circuit boards inside ballistic missiles, for example, this is the place to come.

Though not as famous as the Moscow Circus, St. Petersburg's version of this popular Russian form of entertainment dates from 1867 and remains a popular treat for children. Avid young circus fans get a kick out of its adjacent Circus Art Museum, founded in 1928.

Costumes, crafts, and other artifacts provide a look at the various ethnic groups of the former Soviet Union. If you're traveling with kids, the best time for a visit may be Sunday afternoons, when they can attend workshops and learn how to paint on wood and clay, model something out of birch bark, or make folk dolls.

About 60 exhibits provide visitors with the opportunity to learn the laws of physics, chemistry, and nature in an entertaining way, whether by making lightning, creating an artificial tornado, getting inside a huge bubble, or finding their way through a mirror labyrinth. The museum is a reinvention of similar displays installed here by the eminent scientist Yakov Perelman in 1935. These were destroyed during World War II, and Perelman and his wife starved to death during the Siege of Leningrad.

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.