The current Winter Palace or Zimniy Dvorets (Russian: ?????? ??????) in Saint Petersburg was built between 1755 and 1762 as the winter residence of the Russian tsars.
The Empress Elizabeth wanted a palace to rival Versailles and commissioned Bartolomeo Rastrelli to create what would be the fifth and final version of the palace. He created a Rococo-style, three-storey green-and-white palace with 1,786 doors, 117 staircases and 1,945 windows.
The Palace is now part of a complex of buildings known as the State Hermitage Museum, which holds one of the world's greatest collections of art.
The Cathedral of SS Peter and Paul is the oldest church in St. Petersburg, and also the second-tallest building in the city. It is intimately linked to both the history of the city and to the Romanov dynasty, as it is home to the graves of nearly all the rulers of Russia since Peter the Great.
Work began on the first, wooden church to be erected on the site just one month after St. Petersburg was officially founded, and the church was consecrated on April 1, 1704. In 1712, the current, stone Peter and Paul Cathedral started to be built, to a design by Domenico Trezzini. This one took slightly longer to build - 20 years, in fact - and was consecrated on June 29, 1733.
