One of the first areas of St. Petersburg to be developed because of its defendable position, Vasilyevsky Island forms the northwestern corner of the central city. Opposite the Admiralty and Winter Palace, at the island’s eastern tip, is the remarkable architectural complex known as the Strelka (“Pointer”), facing the bifurcation of the Neva. Behind the two great Rostral Columns, decorated by carved ships’ prows, and across Pushkin Square, the point rises majestically to the former Exchange building (Thomas de Thomon, 1805–10), the city’s finest example of early 19th-century style and reminiscent of a Classical Greek temple in appearance; it now houses the Central Naval Museum.

Farther back, the Twelve Colleges building (Trezzini, 1722–42), originally intended to house the supreme governmental bodies of Peter, is now the home of the city’s state university. The building is divided into 12 identical but independent sections and runs at right angles to the Neva embankment, which is fronted at that point by the facades of the main building of the Academy of Sciences, the Menshikov Palace, and the Academy of Arts. On the far, or northern, side of the Exchange is the Naval Customs House—now known as Pushkin House (Institute of Russian Literature)—designed by Giovanni Luchini (1829–32).

The Erarta Museum and Galleries of Contemporary Art, Russia’s largest private museum of contemporary art, opened in 2010, on the western edge of Vasilyevsky Island. On the opposite side of the island, Novy Muzei (“New Museum”) focuses on works from the second half of the 20th century.

Petrograd Side

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Upstream of the bifurcation of the Neva is the Petrograd Side, where the great Peter-Paul Fortress faces the Strelka across the Malaya Neva. Founded in 1703, this fortification, the city’s first structure, initially had earthen walls, but these were soon replaced by stone walls 40 feet (12 metres) high and 12 feet (4 metres) thick, with 300 cannons mounted on the bastions. Above the squat horizontal lines of the fortress’s massive walls soars the slender, arrowlike spire of the Cathedral of St. Peter and St. Paul, a golden landmark for the city. The cathedral was built in 1712–33 by Trezzini, and the tsars and tsarinas of Russia from the time of Peter (except for Peter II and Nicholas II) are buried in it. Trezzini also designed St. Peter’s (Petrovsky) Gate (1718) as the eastern entrance to the fortress. The Neva Gate, designed by Nikolay A. Lvov, dates from 1787. From the early 19th century the fortress was used as a prison, chiefly for political prisoners. Today it is a museum. At noon each day a cannon is fired from its battlements.

Just to the east of the Peter-Paul Fortress, where the Bolshaya Nevka River begins, the cruiser Aurora is permanently moored as a museum and training vessel for the Naval College. It was the Aurora that in 1917 fired the blank shot that served as the signal to storm the Winter Palace during the October Revolution.

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Vyborg Side

The northeastern part of the central city had by the late 19th century developed into an industrial appendage, but by the end of the 20th century most of its industry had been replaced by office and apartment buildings and retail establishments. One of its most famous features is the Finland Railway Station, which faces the Admiralty Side across the Neva. Lenin returned to Russia in April 1917 via this station, and there he made his initial pronouncement of a new course that would bring the Bolsheviks to power. A major street of the Vyborg Side is Bolshoi Sampsonievski Prospekt, along which stand such buildings as the Cathedral of St. Sampson.

Outer region

St. Petersburg extends well to the north and south of the original delta site, with arms of growth extending westward along the banks of the Gulf of Finland. The newer outer suburbs include extensive open areas, and parts of the periphery are designated as greenbelt. Alongside the city’s satellite towns, large-scale commercial agriculture and “agro-recreational” plots owned by residents of St. Petersburg (dachas, collective orchards, and vegetable gardens) extend 12 to 50 miles (20 to 80 km) from the city centre. However, the multiplicity of large housing blocks containing numerous two- or three-room apartments means that population densities in the built-up areas remain high. As in virtually all modern cities, commuting over long distances is the price paid for more living space and the cleaner air of the suburbs. Among the suburbs noteworthy for their historical and cultural value are Peterhof, Pushkin, Pavlovsk, and Gatchina.