Ah the romance of the canals and neo-classic buildings, the world’s best ballet and opera stars and museums filled with priceless works of art. St. Petersburg is indeed a city of culture. Built on the blood of thousands of Russian serfs with a bloody history of revolt, murder, tragedy and down-right freakiness St. Petersburg also hides many spooky stories. As Halloween draws near and the nights start to get longer, darker and colder, In Your Pocket has gone in search of the city’s ghostly residents. Read on ...if you dare.

Mikhailovsky Castle - Paranoid Paul
This is reported to be St. Petersburg’s most haunted building. Designed by Pavel I (who was mortally terrified of being assassinated) as an impenetrable fortress, the Tsar managed to live here for only 41 nights before he was strangled to death in his bedroom by his own guards. Ever since his grisly murder, Pavel’s ghost has haunted the halls of the castle. Sometimes he is seen playing a flute and at others wandering around in his night clothes trying to find the people who betrayed him. Most museum workers refuse to stay in the palace at night, while even security guards and the police are not very keen on the idea either. If you’re passing by the castle at night, look carefully at the windows, you might see the city’s most popular ghost staring right back at you.

The Hermitage - cheeky mummies
The Winter Palace not only houses some of the world’s most treasured artworks, it’s also rumoured to be the home of a number of ghosts. The reputedly very polite spirit of Emperor Nikolai I is said to be looking after the collection of the Tyomny (dark) Corridor, while some people claim that one of the mummies in the Egyptian collection likes to wink at museum workers. Just don’t tell Mikhail Piotrovsky that we told you though - as director of the museum, he vehemently denies the stories.

Peter and Paul Fortress - the weeping woman
There’s all number of gruesome events that have taken place inside St. Petersburg’s oldest fortress-cum-prison, everything from torture and public hangings to drownings and suicides. However, there’s only one ghost that is said to haunt the cells of the old prison - that of Countess Tarakanova. Arrested in Italy under the orders of Catherine II, for pretending to be of royal decent, she was imprisoned and later died here of tuberculosis. Many people have reported hearing her sobbing quietly into her silk handkerchief - especially around the Neva curtain walls, where prisoners were sometimes allowed to walk.

The Kunstkamera - Guyduk the Giant
Brought from France to live in the court of Peter the Great, Guyduk the giant was the largest of the many men who had gigantism that were part of the Tsar’s retinue. When he died his skeleton was saved for the freaky anatomical collection of the Kunstkamera, rather than being buried. In the late 19th Century someone stole his massive skull and from that day on the ghost of the giant was seen wandering around the halls of the museum looking for the thief. The museum workers began to find this so irritating that they found another skull and put that with the skeleton. Strangely enough, this seemed to actually work and the ghost hasn’t been seen in the last 80 years.

Kanal Griboedeva/ Church on Spilled Blood - the dead terrorist
The church on the spilled blood was built on the place were socialist-revolutionary terrorists from the Narodnaya Vola group murdered Tsar Alexander II in 1881. Sofia Perovskaya was one of the ring leaders of the group and the fall of her handkerchief was the signal to start the attack on the Tsar’s carriage as he passed down Kanal Griboedeva. She may have achieved her goal, but she was hanged for her involvement in the plot on March 03 1881. Many people say that every year around this date you can see a young lady wondering around this area, with a blue face and neck covered in rope marks.

The Russian Academy of Arts - the depressed artist
This beautiful building reportedly has two ghosts, that of the building’s architect and of the academy’s first director. The young architect Kokorinov was commissioned by Catherine the Great to build one of the greatest art academies in the world and he did exactly as directed. However, when Catherine came round to look at the completed building, she became incredibly angry with the architect as her dress got soiled by some wet paint from the walls. Kokorinov was so upset about the incident that he hung himself in the attic of the building the same night. His ghost is said to be seen wandering the halls in a hurry with his drawing tools. Sculptor Kozlovsky, the first director of the academy, is also said to occasionally turn up. Workers say that on stormy nights, he comes and bangs on the entrance demanding to be let in. Apparently he can even be heard shouting; “It’s me, sculptor Kozlovsky from Smolenskoye cemetery, I got wet and frozen in my grave…open the door!” No one has yet been reported to have opened up for him.

Smolenskoye cemetery - the angry priests
Cemeteries are scary right? You bet they are. Come here at night and you may bump into one of the 40 priests who were buried alive here after refusing to denounce their faith following Russia’s socialist revolution.

Rasputin
Despite being quite a freaky character in his life and being one of the most famous murder victims in St. Petersburg’s history, there are not many reports of a ghost of the mad monk. However the story of his death and burial does still count as the creepiest in the city. After being poisoned with large doses of cyanide by Prince Yusupov and his friends in the basement of the Yusupovksy palace, Rasputin just would not die, so Prince Yusupov then shot him in the back as the monk was trying to escape the palace. One shot was not enough though and Rasputin tried to fight back, so Yusupov shot him again three more times. And yet still he just would not die! The gang then proceeded to club him to death and died him up and threw him into the icy Neva river. When the body was recovered water was said to be found his lungs, suggesting that even when in the river he was still alive. His body was eventually buried in the grounds of Catherine’s palace at Pushkin but following the October revolution his corpse was dug up and burned. Rasputin got his last revenge though. As the body was being cremated, bystanders were horrified as Rasputin appeared to sit up in the fire - further cementing the legend that the mad monk was completely indestructible.