More features:

• The Russian Banya

  
  With winter arriving late, the In Your Pocket Editors hunt for indoor winter entertainment and recommend ice-skating and the essential experience of the Russian banya....

• Chizhik & those Sphinxes: Quirky tales behind even quirkier statues

  
  During the last ten or so years, new and intriguing statues have been appearing on the streets of St....

• Russian People: Horsegirls

  Russia must be one of the few countries in the world today where you can see young girls galloping around on horseback in the city centre....

• Peter the Great

  
  Born in 1672, Peter the Great is one of Russia’s most famous tsars. With the help of his half-sister Sophia he ruled for 12 years from 1682 until 1694 when he finally got rid of the pesky whisper in his ear that was his power hungry half-sister, by forcing her into a convent....

• Russian superstitions

  
  Russians are a very superstitious folk, they do a whole host of strange or unusual things to ward off the bad luck and welcome in a bit of good luck....

• How Russians Say I do

  
  As a tourist in St. Petersburg, it is sometimes difficult to avoid falling over the brides hovering around the city’s tourist sights posing for photos....

• The secrets of Russian caviar

  
  Female tennis players are Russia’s eye-catchers nowadays. But long before Maria Sharapova, Elena Dementieva and the others started strutting their stuff on the courts, caviar was one of Russia’s most wanted pearls....

• Bridges of St. Petersburg

  
  When Peter the Great, that wonderful builder, founded the city, he envisaged a bridgeless city where everyone maneuvered around on boats in summer and in winter, cruising around on sleds....

• Lenintown

  
  Vladmir Ilyich Ulyanov or Lenin, as he is more commonly known, is everywhere you look in Russia. St Petersburg is no exception, after all the starting point of the revolution itself was named after him for more than 65 years....

• Children of the Revolution

  
  Revolutionary NamesEver met a Ninel, Revmark or a Tacklis? Young Soviet citizens can thank their overzealous parents for their ingenious names, created anew in honour of the revolution....

• The Magnificent Mariinsky

  The historical MariinskyBack in the day, meaning the 1840s in this case, the first touring circus arrived in St....

• Leningrad Symphony

  
  The performance of Shostakovich’s Leningrad symphony on August 9th 1942 in the Grand Philharmonic hall was a definitive turning point for Leningraders during the years of the terrible siege....

• Great Russian Women

  
  You can call them the pillars of Russian society: the Russian women. But most of them don’t stand in the foreground (men always take this place)....

• Revolution!

  
  According to the old Russian style calendar, the revolution occurred in October, however with the new calendar, the Revolution date is celebrated on the 7th of November....