55 U S A ( To l l - f r e e ) 1-877-381-2914 E m a i l info@theculturalexperience.com First World War Rasputin. We walk along Nevsky Prospekt, St Petersburg’s main thoroughfare, where the marches and demonstrations started on Women’s Day 1917. These uprisings over the simple demand for bread gathered momentum and the revolution quickly became an unstoppable force. At the Field of Mars we see where the ‘honoured dead’ of the revolution were buried and memorialised. The famous Kazan Cathedral and the Russian Museum near the Mikhailovsky Palace give us an insight into Russian religion and art before the day ends at the stunning Church of the Spilled Blood on the site where Alexander II was fatally wounded by anarchists in 1881. Day6–ImperialFamilies.Todaywedriveout totheTsarskoeSelowherewespendtheentire day at this wonderful complex of Romanov summer palaces. Subject to its refurbishment being complete (scheduled Summer 2018), at the Alexander Palace we experience another beautiful residence, initially preserved by the Bolsheviks as a demonstration to the masses of how the Tsars once lived, but today it’s devoted to commemorating the lives of the last Romanovs. The magnificent and opulent Catherine Palace with its elaborately decorated blue-and-white facades featuring gilded atlantes, caryatids and pilasters is the jewel in Tsarkoe’s crown. Its interior is no less spectacular. Day 7 – Politics. Start the day at the Peter & PETER THE GREAT: 2-day extension (with local guides) Day 10 Explore a number of landmarks associated with the city’s founder starting with the great man’s likeness at the impressive and imposing Bronze Horseman statue, mounted on the largest stone ever moved by human beings. The Cabin of Peter the Great was the Tsar’s first ‘palace’ when he was building St Petersburg. The Summer Garden, another of Peter’s constructions, is one of the most romantic and evocative places in St Petersburg. St Michael’s Castle, a royal Palace built for Emperor Paul I, unusual for the fact that it has different architectural design on each side. Day 11 - The Peterhof Palace. often referred to as the Russian Versailles and laid out on the orders of Peter the Great himself, is arguably the grandest of all of St Petersburg’s Palaces. Catch our return flight to London. Paul Fortress, a prison for political prisoners that became known as the ‘Russian Bastille’. A one-time home to Trotsky, Dostoevsky, Tito and the Decembrists, it was taken over by the Bolsheviks in 1917 and used as a prison for their political enemies. View the revolution exhibition at the Museum of Political History, based in the former Bolshevik HQ where Lenin made his historic speech from the balcony. We end our day aboard the Aurora battleship from where the blank shot was fired that signalled the start of the revolution. Day 8 – October 1918. Kronstadt Naval base has become one of the symbolic features of the October Revolution. First the sailors joined the February riots, executing their officers and siding with the Bolsheviks, before turning against them in a twelve day rebellion and battle in 1921. Day 9 – Return. We end our tour by enjoying specially arranged visits to the Tauride Palace, where the ill-fated Provisional Government was based before the Petrograd Soviet took it over, and the Smolny Palace where Lenin chose to set up his government and his home until the civil war forced him to move to the safetyofMoscow.FlyStPetersburgtoLondon. “First class trip with excellent travel arrangements, accommodation and guides.” The Winter Palace