Winter Palace and Peter and Paul Fortress: why we removed these guides
Eight guides to the imperial center of Petersburg are no longer available at this address. These were texts about the Winter Palace, the Winter Palace of Peter I, the Peter and Paul Fortress, the Alexander Column, the Narva Triumphal Gate, the Palace Bridge, the Spit of Vasilyevsky Island, and the Singer Company Building.
All eight texts described the ceremonial center of one city: a palace, a fortress, a column honoring a military victory, a triumphal gate, a bridge, the Spit, and the Singer Company Building. We removed them because the leadership of that city's main museum publicly invoked the imperial tradition as a justification for the current war, and after that the ceremonial center stopped being merely an exhibit.
💡 At a glance:
- which eight guides were deleted and where the old links now lead
- what was said about the imperial tradition and about war as "national self-assertion"
- which UN resolutions respond to the argument about historical continuity
- which cities with imperial architecture remain in our live sections
- Last updated: 09/2026
Why we deleted these guides
The eight removed texts followed the same template: when it was built, who rebuilt it, what to see, opening hours, how to get there. The old addresses in all language versions now have permanent redirects to this text.
Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine began on February 24, 2022. After that date, we consider it impossible to present the ceremonial imperial center as a neutral set of landmarks. The issue is not even the individual buildings, but the fact that all eight of our texts together formed a single narrative: a great power, continuity, victories. That exact narrative is now being used as something other than history.
The financial aspect needs clarification. People often assume that Russia's budget rests only on oil and gas. Under that logic, visitors' money supposedly makes no difference, but this version 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). The inverse is what matters: the share of non-oil-and-gas revenue has grown to roughly 78 percent, and a visitor's money ends up in that part of the budget.
What was said about the imperial tradition
The State Hermitage Museum, which occupies the Winter Palace building, is headed by Mikhail Piotrovsky. In June 2022, in an interview with the Russian Federation state outlet Rossiyskaya Gazeta, he said: "On the one hand, war is blood and murder, and on the other it is self-assertion of people, self-assertion of a nation," and added that "we were all raised in the imperial tradition" (reconstruction of the interview, Novaya Gazeta Europe, 20.10.2025; The Art Newspaper, 11.04.2023). In the same conversation, he called the museum's foreign exhibitions "a cultural special operation, a powerful cultural offensive," a statement to which the Ukrainian Institute issued a separate response (statement by the Ukrainian Institute).
We quote these words as text and without an active link to the outlet itself: it is on the European Union sanctions list, and we cannot link to it. We also do not comment on the speaker as a person and do not attribute anything to him beyond what he said. What matters to us is different: the argument about the imperial tradition was voiced here not by opponents or commentators, but by the director of the museum that occupies the Winter Palace, and it was voiced directly in connection with the war.
After that, our guide to the Winter Palace and to the column honoring a military victory stopped being neutral. It reproduced exactly the line of continuity that this conversation proposed to treat as a basis for what is happening today.
It is worth stating clearly what we are not doing. We are not entering an architectural debate and are not reassessing the value of the buildings: the column on Palace Square will remain an outstanding structure regardless of who says what about it. We are not projecting what was said onto museum staff, restorers, or tour guides. And we are not claiming that our previous authors were promoting anything: they wrote an ordinary guide at a time when that still seemed like a neutral activity. What changed is not the building or the text, but what this history is now being openly used to justify.
What the documents say in response to the continuity argument
Imperial continuity is not a legal category but a rhetorical one. The legal assessments of what is happening look different, and each has a number and a date.
On March 27, 2014, the UN General Assembly adopted resolution 68/262 "Territorial integrity of Ukraine" by 100 votes in favor, 11 against, and 58 abstentions: the resolution affirms the territorial integrity of Ukraine within its internationally recognized borders and declares invalid the "referendum" of March 16, 2014 in Russia-occupied Crimea (Ukraine) and the city of Sevastopol (text of resolution A/RES/68/262, UN Digital Library).
On October 12, 2022, the same Assembly adopted resolution ES-11/4 by 143 votes: the attempted annexation of the Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson regions was declared to have no legal validity (UN press release GA/12458, 12.10.2022). Even earlier, on March 2, 2022, resolution ES-11/1 demanded that Russia immediately cease the invasion and unconditionally withdraw all troops from the territory of Ukraine (UN press release GA/12407, 02.03.2022).
Our previous text about the triumphal gate told the story of a victory from two hundred years ago. We believe that publishing it today in the "what to see in one day" genre means lending a shoulder to this rhetoric, even if entirely unintentionally.
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 | |
Transition period | For contracts concluded before 24.10.2025, ended on 01.01.2026 | |
Tour guide services and their advertising | Explicitly named among those covered by the ban | |
German Foreign Office advisory | "Vor Reisen in die Russische Föderation wird gewarnt" | |
Status of occupied Crimea | UN General Assembly Resolution 68/262 declared the 2014 "referendum" invalid |
Where to go instead
The query that brought readers to these texts was about a grand embankment, a palace on the water, a fortress within the city limits, and a large square with a column. The live sections of the site answer that: Austria with Vienna, France with Paris, Hungary with Budapest, Italy with Venice and Turin. For fortresses within city limits, we have material on Luxembourg, Valletta, and Dubrovnik; for palace embankments, on Stockholm and Copenhagen.
The overall explanation for the entire section is collected in the section hub. Related texts: our position on the museums of Saint Petersburg and our position on the city palaces of Saint Petersburg.
Where we stand
We believe that the imperial ensemble in the center of Petersburg stopped being a neutral exhibit not by our choice, but by the choice of those who openly drew today's politics out of it. In our assessment, after such a statement, the text "The Winter Palace, the column, the triumphal gates in one day" works as an illustration of someone else's argument, not as local history. We decided to remove all eight pieces and explain the reason at the same address.
We write about a 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 to remove these guides was prompted by the public statements of the Hermitage director about imperial tradition, not by nationality.
Publication date: September 3, 2026. Last updated: September 3, 2026.
⁉️🤔 Frequently asked questions
Does eighteenth-century architecture really bear responsibility for today's war?
No, and we are not claiming that. We are talking about the genre of our own text. A guidebook does not describe a building; it invites you to come and step into the story it offers. That invitation is exactly what we removed.
Why don't you link to the interview itself?
The outlet is on the European Union sanctions list. That is why we link to independent publications that analyze the quote.
Are you accusing the museum director of anything unlawful?
No. We quote his public statement and add neither personal judgments nor assumptions about his motives. Everything stated comes from the independent sources cited in the same paragraph.
Where do the old links to these guides lead?
To this page, in all language versions.
In short
Eight guides to the imperial center of Saint Petersburg have been deleted, and the old addresses redirect here. The director of the museum that occupies the Winter Palace publicly linked the war in June 2022 to "national self-assertion" and imperial tradition. UN General Assembly resolutions 68/262 and ES-11/4 give that continuity a different legal assessment. Regulation 2025/2033 prohibits persons in the EU from providing services related to tourism in Russia. The transition period for existing contracts ended on January 1, 2026. The German Foreign Office warns against travel. Cities with imperial architecture that we continue to cover 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
- Novaya Gazeta Europe, reconstruction of an interview with the director of the State Hermitage Museum, 10/20/2025. https://novayagazeta.eu/en/articles/2025/10/20/the-emperor-en
- The Art Newspaper, on public statements by the Hermitage director, 04/11/2023. https://www.theartnewspaper.com/2023/04/11/pro-putin-hermitage-director-mikhail-piotrovsky-speaks-out-again-in-support-of-war-in-ukraine
- Ukrainian Institute, statement on the interview with Mikhail Piotrovsky. https://ui.org.ua/en/news-en/statement-on-the-interview-of-mikhail-piotrovsky-2/
- UN General Assembly, resolution 68/262 "Territorial integrity of Ukraine", 03/27/2014. https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/767883/files/A_RES_68_262-EN.pdf?ln=en
- UN General Assembly, resolution ES-11/4, 10/12/2022. https://press.un.org/en/2022/ga12458.doc.htm
- UN General Assembly, resolution ES-11/1, 03/02/2022. https://press.un.org/en/2022/ga12407.doc.htm
- 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.