Dear CEEISA St.Petersburg Participants,

we are glad to offer you a number of excursions, that will be available during the Convention:

City sightseeing tour comprises all major sights and places of St. Petersburg that absolutely everyone must visit to appreciate our city at its true value. Today the city tour is the most popular choice of the majority of our visitors. During this excursion you will see Nevsky Prospekt, The Palace Square, Winter Palace, The Savior on Spilled Blood, St. Isaac’s Cathedral.

Excursion duration: 3 hours

City sightseeing tour (with the visit to The Peter and Paul Fortress) comprises all major sights and places of St. Petersburg that absolutely everyone must visit to appreciate our city at its true value. Today the city tour is the most popular choice of the majority of our visitors. During this excursion you will see Nevsky Prospekt, The Palace Square, Winter Palace, The Savior on Spilled Blood, St. Isaac’s Cathedral. The Peter and Paul Fortress is the original citadel of St. Petersburg, Russia, founded by Peter the Great in 1703 and built under Domenico Trezzini"s designs from 1706 to 1740. From around 1720, the fort served as a base for the city garrison and also as a prison for high ranking or political prisoners. The fortress contains several notable buildings clustered around the Peter and Paul Cathedral. The cathedral is the burial place of all Russian tsars from Peter I to Nikolay II. Other structures inside the fortress include the still functioning mint (constructed in accordance with Antonio Porta"s designs under Emperor Paul), the Trubetskoy and Alekseyevsky bastions with their grim prison cells, and the city museum. The sandy beaches underneath the fortress walls are among the most popular in St. Petersburg. In summer the beach is often overcrowded, especially when a major sand festival takes place on the shore.

Excursion duration: 4 hours

The State Hermitage Museum is one of the largest museums in the world, with 3 million works of art (not all on display at once), and one of the oldest art galleries and museums of human history and culture in the world. Strong points of the Hermitage collection of Western art include Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, Rubens, van Dyck, Rembrandt, Poussin, Claude Lorrain, Watteau, Tiepolo, Canaletto, Canova, Rodin, Monet, Pissarro, Renoir, Cézanne, van Gogh, Gauguin, Picasso, and Matisse. The Hermitage holds the Guinness World Record as having the world"s largest collection of paintings.

Excursion duration: 4 hours

The Russian Museum is the first state museum of the Russian fine art in the country. It was established in 1895 in St Petersburg under the decree of the Emperor Nicholas II. The Russian Museum today is a unique depository of artistic treasures, a famous restoration centre, an authoritative institute of academic research, one of the major cultural and educational centers, research and methodological centre of art museums of the Russian Federation.

Excursion duration: 3 hours

Peterhof sometimes called the "Russian Versailles". It is an immensely luxurious royal estate, lying on the shore of the Gulf of Finland (Baltic Sea), a combination of several palaces and parks. The focal point of both the Lower Park and the Upper Garden is the magnificent Grand Palace (Bolshoi Dvorets) with the Grand Cascade (Bolshoi Kaskad) in front of it.

Excursion duration: 4 hours

Tsarskoe selo. For over two centuries Tsarskoe Selo was considered the main imperial summer residence. Catherine Park is a wonderful work of the Russian art of gardening from the 18th and 19th centuries, which combines the masterpieces of architecture with the beauty of the transforming nature of the north. In its landscaping one can find the features of different garden styles. The Regular part of the park lies between the Catherine Palace, the Great Pond and the Cascade ponds. In the Catherine Palace you can visit the well-known and really magnificent Amber Room. Alexander Park consists of 188 square hectares, and is divided into two parts, the Regular (new park) and the Landscape park.

Excursion duration: 4 hours

The Mariinsky Theatre is a historic theatre of opera and ballet in St Petersburg. Opened in 1860, it became the preeminent music theatre of late 19th century Russia, where many of the stage masterpieces of Tchaikovsky, Mussorgsky, and Rimsky-Korsakov received their premieres. Valery Gergiev is general director and artistic director of the Mariinsky Theatre, principal conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra, and principal guest conductor of the Metropolitan Opera. He is also the artistic director of the White Nights Festival in St. Petersburg.

Matinee performances begin at 11.30 am and evening performances at 7.00 pm unless otherwise stated.