One interesting thing about this part of the world is how late it remains light.  The "white nights" occur around June 11 to July 2.  Since we were there around that time, it never really got dark.  There was one night when we were in the hot tub until around midnight and it was light enough outside that it seemed like the afternoon.

St. Petersburg is formerly known as Leningrad during the Soviet era. We also would have liked to visit Moscow, but that excursion was way too expensive.

I have a lot of pictures from Russia so bear with me.  One of the first things we did in Russia was take a cruise in one of the above boats up and down the Neva River and some canals.  The land in the above photo is actually an island called Vasilyevsky Island.

If you look real close at the picture above this one, you can see where this statue is sitting.  There is a whole classification for horse statues. Depending on how the horse stands, etc. has different meanings.  I don't know them all, so I won't elaborate :-)

This is a Rostral column built in front of the stock exchange.  They were originally built as beacons.

This ship is the Aurora Cruiser that fired the first shot that started the Bolshevik Revolution (1917).

This is the Hermitage which is a very famous art museum.  We went on a very long tour inside.  It was interesting at first, but since I am not an art fan, I got tired before it was finished.  Inside are pieces from such famous artists as Leonardo da Vinci, Gaughin, Picasso, and Rembrandt.