Bookstores in St. Petersburg are numberous and diverse. The city has a prominent literary history and bears associations with Russian literary giants such as Pushkin, Gogol, and Dostoyevsky. It makes sense, then, that it is also bursting at the seams with both hip and traditional bookstores. After spending a semester here as a literature major, […]
In the last few years, coffee culture has exploded across Russia, with new, local coffee shops popping up everywhere from Moscow to Vladivostok. However, perhaps the hippest and most intellectual take on coffee culture can be found in St. Petersburg, a city that stands apart in its reverence for art and culture. Here are ten […]
The Loft Project Etagi (Этажи) is a creative space affectionately known as “the loft” by those who frequent it. A community-driven project to develop modern art in St. Petersburg, it has a nuanced history that reflects Russia’s transition from communism to a market economy and represents Russians’ desire to contribute to the development of their […]
Around any given corner in St Petersburg one can expect to find a museum that reflects the city’s unique cultural history. In particular, St Petersburg has a wide array of literary house museums – museums that detail the life of an author inside an actual former home of that author. These are particularly interesting in […]
Yevgeni Grishkovetz is a Russian born novelist, playwright, musician, and actor. He is best known for his theatrical work, particularly with the Theater of Modern Song in Moscow, where many of works have been staged. His writing and performing are known for their insightful nature. He strives to show how experiences are often universal. Often […]
Although The Shadow Museum is centrally located it is somewhat difficult to find as it is tucked within a gated courtyard (of which St. Petersburg has many). Once you find it, however, it is worth the searching as it offers a fun, interactive, and interpretive experience that tells a short history of St Petersburg through […]
The State Russian Museum holds the world’s largest collection of Russian art. The approximately 110,000 square feet of the museum’s primary exhibition space are structured to give the visitor a basic overview of how art has grown and developed specifically in Russia. Several auxiliary spaces are used to show everything from folk art to modern […]
Alexander Blok’s former apartment is now part of a two-floor museum complex. Blok was one of Russia’s primer Silver Age poets, and his museum shows not only how he worked, but also gives some indication of the emotionally extreme but also socially well-connected life he led. The museum is located in the historic Kolomna district […]
The Literary Museum of the Institute of Russian Literature of the Russian Academy of Sciences is often just called “The Pushkin House” for short. It provides, essentially, an overview course on Russian canonical writers from the Golden Age through the end of Russia’s Silver Age. It achieves this by displaying original manuscripts and personal belongings […]
Vladimir Sharov was a Russian writer who was deeply interested in the legacy of Russia’s Communist history. His nine novels focus on various aspects of this history: the communist schisms, Bolshevism, Stalin’s Terror, and the USSR’s collapse, and often mixes or juxtaposes ideas from Communism and religion. Russia’s Soviet history was deeply personal to Sharov, […]
Nikolai Nekrasov is one of Russia’s most famous poets and literary thinkers. While he is not as recognized abroad as some of his contemporaries like Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, and Turgenev, Nekrasov was a great influence on their careers as well as to as to the intellectual thought of the time that affected many of these great […]
The Dostoevsky Memorial Apartment Museum at 5/2 Kuzneckny Pereulok in St. Petersburg is dedicated to drawing a picture of the great Russian writer as a person with a focus on his work habits, on his concerns, and particularly on his family life. Even discussion of his greatest novels is presented within the context of telling […]
