Palace Square in St. Petersburg: What to See, How to Get There and Where to Eat

If there’s one square you absolutely have to set foot on in St. Petersburg, it’s Palace Square. Here you’ll find the Winter Palace, home to the Hermitage Museum; the imposing Alexander Column in the center; the General Staff Building with its triumphal arch; and peeking out to the west, the golden spire of the Admiralty. It’s the historical heart of the city, the stage of the 1917 Revolution and one of the most beautiful squares in the world. In this article I’ll tell you what to see, how to get there and where to eat nearby, with all the practical details updated for 2026.

The largest square in Russia (and twice the size of Red Square)

Before diving in, a sense of scale: Palace Square covers 5.4 hectares, more than twice the area of Red Square in Moscow, and it’s entirely pedestrian. It’s surrounded by an architectural ensemble dating from the second half of the 18th century to the first half of the 19th, declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1990 as part of the historic center of St. Petersburg.

Four buildings frame the square:

• to the north, the Winter Palace (home to the Hermitage Museum)
• to the south, the General Staff Building with its triumphal arch
• to the east, the Guards Corps Headquarters
• to the west, open toward the Admiralty and the Alexander Garden

And right in the middle stands the Alexander Column, which holds itself up by sheer weight without being fixed to the pedestal. The square connects Nevsky Avenue with the Palace Bridge over the Neva River, and it’s the starting point for most sightseeing routes and city tours.

How to get there and when to visit

Nearest metro: Admiralteyskaya (line 5, purple), 700 meters away. It’s the deepest station on the St. Petersburg metro and the most convenient for reaching the historic center. You can also get there from Nevsky Prospekt (line 2) or Gostiny Dvor (line 3), but you’ll have to walk a bit more along Nevsky Avenue, which is honestly no hardship — quite the opposite. If you’re planning to use the metro during your trip, I cover everything in my article on St. Petersburg public transport.

Best time of day: early in the morning (before 10:00) the square is practically empty and the light is gorgeous for photos. From mid-morning onwards it fills up with tourists, guided groups and street performers. Sunset is also very photogenic, especially in summer during the White Nights, when the sky never fully darkens.

Time needed: one hour is enough for the square itself. If you’re going into the Hermitage, set aside at least half a day (ideally a full day).

A square shaped by history

A lot has happened here. The square has been called Дворцовая площадь (Palace Square) since 1766, after the Winter Palace that occupies its entire north side. Between 1918 and 1944 it was renamed Uritsky Square, in honor of Moisei Uritsky, one of the organizers of the storming of the Palace in 1917, who was assassinated at the entrance to the General Staff Building in August 1918.

Two events turned this square into a stage of world history:

• Bloody Sunday, January 9, 1905: Tsar Nicholas II ordered troops to fire on workers protesting in front of the Winter Palace. The massacre was one of the sparks that ignited the 1905 Revolution.
• the storming of the Winter Palace on October 25, 1917 (Julian calendar), which brought the Bolsheviks to power and marked the start of the Soviet regime.

A fun fact: the cobblestones (брусчатка) you walk on aren’t as old as they look. They were laid in 1977 and are renewed periodically, so if a street vendor tries to sell you a “historic stone” from the square, don’t fall for it. The city administration actually had to clarify this publicly because people kept prying up cobblestones as souvenirs.

1. The Winter Palace and the Hermitage Museum

The oldest and most famous building on the square is the Winter Palace (1754-1762), the work of Italian-Russian architect Francesco Bartolomeo Rastrelli in the Elizabethan Baroque style. It was the official winter residence of the tsars from 1762 to 1904, when Nicholas II moved to the Alexander Palace in Tsarskoye Selo (today’s Pushkin). From July to November 1917 it housed the Provisional Government following the tsar’s abdication.

The palace has three floors, is square-shaped with an inner courtyard, and its facades face the Neva River, the Admiralty and Palace Square (where the main facade is located). Today it houses the Hermitage Museum, one of the world’s greatest art collections and, by exhibition area (more than 233,000 m²), the largest art museum on the planet. The main complex alone has 365 rooms open to the public, and the collection holds more than 3 million works.

Hermitage practical details in 2026

• Museum entrance: through the large courtyard of the Winter Palace (2 Palace Square). It used to involve queuing at ticket windows; now everything works through timed sessions booked online.
• Price: 700 rubles for the basic ticket to the Main Complex (Winter Palace + Small, New and Great Hermitage + Hermitage Theatre). The General Staff Building is a separate ticket, another 700 rubles.
• Opening hours: Tuesday, Friday and Saturday from 11:00 to 20:00; Wednesday, Thursday and Sunday from 11:00 to 18:00. Closed on Mondays, January 1 and May 9. Last admission is 2 hours before closing.
• Free days: the third Thursday of each month (for certain categories such as Russian students and pensioners).
• Recommended duration: 2 hours per session, although you can stay longer. To see the essentials, plan at least half a day.

Don’t try to see it all in one visit: it’s been calculated that if you spent just one minute on each piece, it would take you more than 11 years to go through the entire collection.

I have a dedicated article walking you step by step through how to buy tickets, which routes to follow, the works you absolutely shouldn’t miss and how to skip the queues: The Hermitage in Saint Petersburg: the complete guide to your visit.

The Atlantes Portico

Right next to the Winter Palace, on Millionnaya Street, stands the Atlantes Portico of the New Hermitage Building. Ten enormous male figures carved in grey granite by Alexander Terebenev in 1844 hold up the entrance to the museum on their shoulders. It’s one of the most photographed spots in St. Petersburg.

There’s a popular legend: touching the big toe of one of the atlantes brings luck in love. You can tell which ones are the favorites because they’re polished smooth from so many hands.

2. The General Staff Building (1819-1829)

Facing the Winter Palace and closing the square to the south stands the majestic General Staff Building, with a curved facade 580 meters long — one of the longest in Europe. It was designed by architect Carlo Rossi between 1819 and 1829 in neoclassical style, deliberately conceived to blend with the baroque of the Winter Palace and give visual unity to the ensemble. It was one of the great achievements of Russian imperial urban planning.

Throughout its history it has served as the seat of the Army General Staff, the Ministry of Defense, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Finance. Today it’s split in two:

• the west wing remains military (headquarters of the Western Military District). Not open to visitors.
• the east wing, since 1993, belongs to the Hermitage Museum. This is where the modern and contemporary art collections live: Impressionists and Post-Impressionists (Monet, Van Gogh, Gauguin, Matisse, Picasso, Cézanne), the Fabergé collection and the Museum of the Imperial Guard. If you love modern art, this side is a gem and usually has far fewer crowds than the Winter Palace.

Important: although some older guides will tell you that admission to the General Staff Building is included in the general Hermitage ticket, that’s no longer the case. They’ve been separate tickets (700 rubles each) for years now. The entrance to the General Staff Building is through the door under the arch, on Bolshaya Morskaya Street.

The most striking feature of the building is the great Triumphal Arch that splits it in two. At 36 meters high, a chariot of the goddess Glory drawn by six horses and led by two soldiers commemorates the Russian victory over Napoleon in 1812. If you walk under the arch along Bolshaya Morskaya Street, you come out directly onto Nevsky Avenue.

3. The Alexander Column (1830-1834)

At the exact center of the square rises the Alexander Column, a monument commemorating the Russian victory over Napoleon. It was designed by Auguste de Montferrand, the same French architect behind Saint Isaac’s Cathedral, drawing inspiration from Trajan’s Column in Rome.

A few figures to give you a sense of its scale:

• Total height: 47.5 meters (the monolithic granite shaft itself, without the pedestal, measures 25.6 m).
• Weight: around 600 tons.
• Material: a single piece of pink granite, cut from a quarry in Pyterlahti (Finland), more than 190 km from St. Petersburg, and transported by barge.
• Not fixed in place: it stands by its own weight. When it was unveiled, many people were afraid to walk near it in case it toppled. Legend has it that Montferrand walked his dog around the column every afternoon to prove it was safe.

More than 2,000 soldiers and workers took part in raising it, which was done in less than two hours on August 30, 1832. The official inauguration, presided over by Nicholas I, took place on August 30, 1834.

At the top stands an angel with a cross, sculpted by Boris Orlovsky, treading on a serpent: a symbol of the peace Russia brought to Europe by defeating Napoleon. The angel’s face is said to resemble that of Tsar Alexander I.

The base is decorated with four bronze bas-reliefs that allegorically glorify the victories of the Russian army, and crowned with double-headed eagles at the corners.

4. The Guards Corps Headquarters (1837-1843)

The east side of the square is closed off by the Guards Corps Headquarters, in neoclassical style, the work of architect A. P. Bryullov between 1837 and 1843. It’s probably the most understated building in the ensemble and the one most people overlook, but it completes the visual balance of the square.

It’s still a military building (headquarters of the 6th Red Banner Leningrad Army of the Air Force and Air Defense) and isn’t open to the public.

5. The Admiralty (1806-1823)

The west side of the square isn’t enclosed by any building; instead it opens onto the Alexander Garden and, beyond it, the imposing Admiralty, whose golden spire is crowned by a small ship that’s one of the symbols of St. Petersburg (along with the Bronze Horseman and the angel atop the Peter and Paul Fortress).

Built between 1806 and 1823 in the Empire style on the site of the old shipyard-fortress founded by Peter I in 1704, it’s one of the great examples of Russian classicism. Its main facade stretches 407 meters and is packed with allegorical reliefs celebrating Russian maritime power.

Since October 31, 2012, the Admiralty has housed the General Staff of the Russian Navy (Главное командование ВМФ России), relocated from Moscow. That’s why the blue St. Andrew’s flag of the Russian Navy flies above the building. It isn’t open to visitors: it’s an active military facility. You can only admire the facade and the spire from outside.

6. Palace Square today: events and atmosphere

Palace Square isn’t just a frozen 19th-century backdrop. Millions of people pass through every year, and some of the city’s most important events are held here:

• New Year: the square hosts the tallest Christmas tree in the city (close to 30 meters), a Christmas market and, in recent years, a huge 8-meter ice slide next to the Alexander Column, and in some editions an ice rink as well.
• May 9 (Victory Day): a commemorative parade and, in the evening, a large open-air concert.
• Scarlet Sails (Алые паруса), late June: the biggest high-school graduation party in the city, drawing more than a million people to the banks of the Neva. The square is closed to traffic and fills with young people celebrating.
• White Nights Marathon, late May or early June: the start and finish line are right here on the square. More details in my article on the White Nights in St. Petersburg.
• Russian Navy Day (last Sunday of July): ceremony with military honors and a concert.
• International concerts: over the years performers here have ranged from Plácido Domingo and the Three Tenors to Madonna, Elton John, Paul McCartney and the Rolling Stones.

On the square you’ll also bump into characters dressed in imperial-era costumes (Peter I, Catherine the Great, tsarist soldiers) happy to pose with you for a fee, horse-drawn carriages waiting for riders, and, in summer, spontaneous busking concerts next to the Atlantes Portico.

7. Where to eat near Palace Square

A 5–10 minute walk gives you several options:

• Bellevue Brasserie (22 Moika River Embankment). On the top floor of the Kempinski Hotel, with 360° views over the Hermitage, the General Staff and the dome of the Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood. Modern French and Russian cuisine. A pricey option, but the views are worth what you pay.
• Stolovaya №1 (14 Griboyedov Canal Embankment). The budget option: a Russian self-service canteen, popular with both locals and tourists. Home-style cooking, generous portions, 300–500 ₽ for a full three-course meal with dessert. No reservation, no fuss, very handy if you’re short on time.

Along Nevsky Avenue you’ll find plenty more options, from Russian chains like Teremok (specializing in blinis) to specialty coffee shops and international fast food.

What’s next after Palace Square?

Walking out under the General Staff arch takes you straight onto Nevsky Avenue, the city’s main street. Crossing the Palace Bridge over the Neva brings you to Zayachy Island and the Peter and Paul Fortress, where the city was born. And if you have more days ahead, I recommend planning your visit properly with my guide to St. Petersburg itineraries from 1 to 4 days.

Frequently asked questions about Palace Square