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City Guide - St Petersburg - Further Distractions | ||
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Further Distractions Piskariovskoye Memorialnoe Kladbishche (Piskarivskoye Memorial Cemetery) Piskarivskoye Memorial Cemetery is a place of pilgrimage for the dwindling survivors of the 1941-44 Siege of Leningrad, rather than a tourist attraction, but is all the more poignant for that. Below large grassy mounds, under the gaze of a massive bronze of Mother Russia, lie the mass graves of 500,000 of those who starved to death in the Nazi blockade. The story is told in the Memorial halls. The suffering and endurance are palpable. Nepokorennykh prospekt 74 Tel: (812) 247 5716. Transport: Metro Akademicheskaya; bus 71, T94, 123 or 178. Opening hours: Daily 1000-1800. Admission: Free. Kreyser Avrora (Cruiser Aurora) Launched in St Petersburg in 1900, the Cruiser Aurora was significant in the major events of Russian history in the first half of the twentieth century. Active in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-5, it fired the shot at the Winter Palace in 1917, which signalled the storming of the palace and the beginning of Bolshevik rule. It was sunk during the siege of Leningrad in 1941 and raised in 1944 to be refitted as a museum in the 1950s. The crew's quarters and the gun that fired the historic shot are on display, as well as photographs and memorabilia of the ship's chequered history. Petrovskaya Naberezhnaya, opposite the Nakhimov Navy School Tel: (812) 230 8440. Transport: Metro Gorkovskaya. Opening hours: Tues-Thurs, Sat and Sun 1030-1600. Admission: Free. |