Palaces of St. Petersburg: why we removed these guides
Six guides to Saint Petersburg's city palaces are no longer available at this address. These were texts about the Mikhailovsky Castle, the Mikhailovsky Palace, the Marble Palace, the Mariinsky Palace, the Yusupov Palace on the Moika, and the Summer Palace of Peter the Great.
For a reader looking for palaces without queues, the answer is short. All six pieces sold one idea: see the same imperial showcase cheaper and with fewer crowds than at the main museums. We removed them because, for a publisher based in the European Union, such a text still amounts to advertising a trip, and in the city itself, alongside the palaces, there are enterprises our previous texts never once mentioned.
💡 At a glance:
- which six guides were removed and where the old links now point
- what else operates in this city besides palaces and museums
- what happened to legal protections for people inside the country after 2022
- which cities with palaces and grand interiors remain in our live sections
- Last updated: 09/2026
Why we deleted these guides
The six removed texts were written as an alternative to the main routes: a second-tier palace, a short queue, an inexpensive ticket, beautiful interiors. The old addresses in all language versions now have permanent redirects to this page.
Let us clarify one thing to avoid confusion. We are talking about the Mariinsky Palace, the building on Saint Isaac's Square, not the Mariinsky Theatre: these are different places, and the editorial position on theatre stages is set out in a separate article in this section.
Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine began on February 24, 2022. We believe that after that date, the "same thing, only cheaper" format stopped being harmless: it lowers the barrier to entry and makes a trip more likely, and it is precisely the likelihood of a trip that we do not want to increase. That is why we removed all six texts in full.
The "second tier" format deserves a separate word. It looks more modest than the main routes and therefore seems less promotional, but it works more effectively: a reader put off by the queues and prices of the Hermitage was handed a ready-made counterargument to their own doubts. We used this technique for years and now acknowledge that, when applied to Russia, it was a mistake.
Let us be precise about the money, because the usual formulation is wrong. The share of oil and gas revenue in Russia's federal budget fell to roughly 22 percent in 2025 and 2026, down from 42 percent in 2022 (OSW Centre for Eastern Studies, 09.12.2025). What matters is the inverse share: non-oil-and-gas revenue has grown to roughly 78 percent, and that part includes taxes on tickets, hotels, and transport.
What else operates in this city
Our guides described Saint Petersburg as a city of palaces and embankments. That is true, but not the whole truth.
Saint Petersburg is home to the Admiralty Shipyards, which build diesel-electric and nuclear submarines, as well as the Almaz shipbuilding firm and the Almaz Central Marine Design Bureau. These enterprises are under sanctions (OpenSanctions, Admiralty Shipyards record; US Department of State, on sanctions against the state-owned defense shipbuilding enterprise).
We state this fact only to the extent that it is confirmed by sanctions lists, and we do not expand on it. We write nothing about the employees of these enterprises: this concerns legal entities and the decisions of the states that listed them. And we do not claim that the palace on the Moika is somehow connected to a shipyard on the other bank. We make a more modest claim: a guide that describes the city as exclusively a museum city gives the reader an incomplete picture, and after February 2022 that incompleteness became unacceptable to us.
The law that stopped applying
There is another circumstance that a palace guide is silent about by definition, even though it directly affects both the city's residents and any visitor.
On March 15, 2022, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe unanimously concluded that the Russian Federation could no longer remain a member state of the organization, and on March 16, 2022, the Committee of Ministers expelled it from the Council of Europe by Resolution CM/Res(2022)2. This is the first expulsion of a state in the organization's history (Council of Europe, 16.03.2022). On September 16, 2022, Russia ceased to be a party to the European Convention on Human Rights (Council of Europe).
For a reader, this is not an abstraction but a very concrete matter: a complaint to the European Court of Human Rights about events taking place in Russia today is impossible. Our previous text about the Yusupov Palace assumed that all of this somehow worked by default. It does not.
This is worth saying plainly. Not a suspension of the delegation's credentials, not a withdrawal of voting rights, but termination of membership. Travel writing usually rests on the silent assumption that the destination country belongs to the same institutions as the reader's country and that, if something goes wrong, familiar mechanisms will work. For Russia, that assumption stopped being true in March 2022, and no palace guide ever told its readers this.
We do not conclude from this that a person cannot go there. We draw a narrower conclusion: we will not offer it to them, and we will not pretend that the framework has remained the same.
What this means for you as an EU reader
Item | Status 09/2026 | Source |
|---|---|---|
Services related to tourism in Russia | Prohibited by Article 5n(2) of Regulation 833/2014 as amended by Regulation 2025/2033 of 23.10.2025 | |
What the ban covers | Travel agency and tour operator services, guide services, and advertising of these services | |
Stated purpose of the ban | Reduce Russia's revenue from such services and curb the promotion of non-essential travel and leisure | |
German Foreign Office advisory | "Vor Reisen in die Russische Föderation wird gewarnt" | |
Complaint to the ECtHR | Not possible: Russia has not been a party to the Convention since 16.09.2022 | |
Shipbuilding enterprises in the city | Admiralty Shipyards and Almaz are under sanctions |
Where to go instead
The query that brought readers to these texts was about grand interiors, enfilades, mirrored halls, and a palace you can visit without a long line. The live sections of the site answer that: Austria with Vienna, Italy with Turin, Mantua, and Caserta, France with the chateaux of the Loire, Hungary with Budapest and Fertod. For palace interiors without the crowds, we have material on Portugal, Slovenia, and Czechia.
The general explanation for the entire section is collected in the section hub. Related texts: our position on the Winter Palace and the Peter and Paul Fortress and our position on Peterhof and Tsarskoye Selo.
Where we stand
We believe that "the same thing, just without the lines" is the most effective way to persuade a reader to go: it removes not the arguments, but the inconveniences. In our assessment, publishing such a text now means working toward the likelihood of a trip to a country that official agencies advise avoiding, and where legal protection under the European Convention no longer exists. We decided to take down all six pieces and explain the reason at the same address.
We write about the state and its policies, not about people based on their passport. There are people in Russia who came out against the war and received prison sentences for it. Our decision not to publish travel guides to Russia concerns money, sanctions, and reader safety, not nationality.
Publication date: September 3, 2026. Last updated: September 3, 2026.
⁉️🤔 Frequently asked questions
Why talk about shipyards in a text about palaces?
Because it is the same city, and our previous guide did not mention this. We state the fact exactly to the extent covered by the sanctions lists and do not draw conclusions from it about specific buildings or people.
Are the Mariinsky Palace and the Mariinsky Theatre the same thing?
No, they are different places. Here we are talking about the palace on Saint Isaac's Square. We have a separate text about theatre stages in this same section.
What does Russia's withdrawal from the European Convention mean for the reader?
The practical answer is short: filing a complaint with the European Court of Human Rights about events taking place in Russia today is impossible. For someone planning a trip, this means the absence of one of the usual protection mechanisms.
Where do old links to these guides lead?
To this page, in all language versions. The reader gets an explanation, a list of sources, and a list of destinations with palaces and grand interiors that we continue to write about.
In short
Six guides to Saint Petersburg's city palaces have been deleted, and old addresses redirect here. The Admiralty Shipyards and Almaz enterprises, which are under sanctions, operate in the same city. Russia was expelled from the Council of Europe on March 16, 2022, and since September 16, 2022, has not been a party to the European Convention on Human Rights. Services related to tourism in Russia, and advertising of these services, are prohibited for EU persons by Article 5n(2) of Regulation 833/2014 as amended by Regulation 2025/2033. Cities with palaces and grand interiors are listed above.
How you can help
We do not collect money and receive nothing from the links below. These are official websites of organizations working with the consequences of the war:
- UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, unhcr.org
- UNICEF, unicef.org
- Ukrainian Red Cross, redcross.org.ua
Sources
- OpenSanctions, profile of JSC Admiralty Shipyards. https://www.opensanctions.org/entities/NK-oE9r7Kprj4NjHaDiL22jDg/
- US Department of State, on sanctions against the state-owned defense shipbuilding enterprise. https://2021-2025.state.gov/additional-state-department-designations-targeting-russian-state-owned-defense-shipbuilding-enterprise/
- Council of Europe, exclusion of the Russian Federation, Resolution CM/Res(2022)2, 03/16/2022. https://www.coe.int/en/web/portal/-/the-russian-federation-is-excluded-from-the-council-of-europe
- Council of Europe, Russia ceases to be a party to the European Convention on Human Rights, 09/16/2022. https://www.coe.int/en/web/portal/-/russia-ceases-to-be-a-party-to-the-european-convention-of-human-rights-on-16-september-2022
- Council Regulation (EU) 2025/2033 of 10/23/2025 amending Regulation 833/2014, EUR-Lex. https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=OJ:L_202502033
- Skadden, analysis of the EU's 19th sanctions package, 11/2025. https://www.skadden.com/insights/publications/2025/11/eu-adopts-19th-sanctions-package
- Auswärtiges Amt, Russische Föderation: Reise- und Sicherheitshinweise, as of 09/02/2026. https://www.auswaertiges-amt.de/de/service/laender/russischefoederation-node/russischefoederationsicherheit-201536?isLocal=false&isPreview=false
- Centre for Eastern Studies OSW, Russia's 2026 budget, 12/09/2025. https://www.osw.waw.pl/en/publikacje/osw-commentary/2025-12-09/russias-2026-budget-mounting-financial-challenges-and-economic
Link check date: 09/03/2026.
A small editorial team writing guides for independent travel. We travel ourselves, but we haven’t been everywhere, so we check prices, opening hours and how to get there against official sources.