City tour with photo stops and a visit to the cruiser Aurora

In the afternoon visit the Palace square and the Winter Palace (learn the exiting story of the storming of the palace in 1917).

Drive to Finland Railway Station to view Lenin’s monument and Lenin’s locomotive. 

The station is famously known for the arrival of Vladimir Lenin by train from Germany on 3 April 1917 to start the October Revolution. The event is commemorated by the Soviet statue of Lenin (making a speech on top of the armed car) dominating the square in front of the station. 

Later Lenin had to flee to Finland for safety, to avoid arrest, and returned to this station again on 9 August 1917. Both times he crossed the Russian-Finnish border on the steam locomotive 293. It is now
installed as a permanent exhibit at one of the platforms on the station.

In the afternoon continue to Tauride palace – a seat of the Provisional government (outside) and visit Smolny Institute, headquarters of revolution in 1917 and central location Bolshevik leaders. 

City tour continues to the Monument to the founder of KGB Felix Dzerzhinsky and takes you by the exterior of the “Bolshoi House” – former KGB builing.

Bolshoy House (Bolshoy Dom) became the local headquarters for the Committee for State Security (KGB) when it replaced the NKVD, and remained under KGB usage until the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. At present, it is used as a branch of the  Federal Security Service of Russia (FSB) and Main Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. 

The morning programme ends with a visit to Peter and Paul Fortress, former political prison in Russia

Peter-and Paul Cathedral is a burial ground of the Romanov Imperial dynasty, the last Russian Tsar Nicholas II and his family were buried there in 1998.

Museum of Political History of Russia

The Museum is located in the former private mansion of Matilda Kshesinskaya, prime-ballerina of Mariinsky Theatre. In 1917 this building briefly became headquarters of the Bolsheviks and Lenin’s office. His memorial apartment is unchanged since Soviet days.

The Museum keeps a number of evidences of Russia’s political life from the late 19th till the early 21st century. They reflect the history of the state system reforming, fates of the most prominent historical figures, processes of development of revolutionary, democratic, social and political movements and parties.

Visit Yusupov Palace on the Moika River, home of the noble and wealthy Yusupov family, where Grigory Rasputin was murdered by Felix Yusupov just before revolution.

Flat Museums of the Alliluyev and the Elizarov families

Those interested in the biography of Vladimir Lenin will certainly enjoy a visit to the Elizarov Flat-Museum. In 1915-1917 it was the home of Lenin’s sister Anna and her husband Mark Elizarov, a revolutionary and later a Soviet politician. In April 1917 Lenin and his wife Nadezhda Krupskaya came to stay here. Although they lived in the flat for only three months, Lenin wrote about 150 works there.

Another address with links to the revolution is the Alliluyev Flat Museum. Joseph Stalin, who was married to Alliluyev’s youngest daughter Nadezhda, lived here for a time. Among those who visited the flat were Lenin and his wife Krupskaya.

This morning we drive to Krondshtadt island– revolutionary sailors’ town. Visit newly restored St. Nicholas’s Cathedral.

Crossing the Gulf of Finland on a damp, we arrive to settlement Razliv to visit Shalash and Sarai museums, secret hiding places of Lenin.

In summer of 1917 Lenin, to escape detection, disguised himself as a haymaker and stayed in sarai (the wooden shed) and in a small shalash (straw cabin) where he worked on his book “State and Revolution. A reconstructed copy of the historic cabin and a pavilion, also called “Shalash” features Lenin related exhibits and temporary exhibitions. The shed was restored to the 100-year anniversary of  Lenin and protected with a glass case.

All the visits are subject to change due to days off at Museums