Peter I's Winter Palace

Quarenghi, as architect of the Hermitage Theater, decided to use Peter's old Winter Palace as the foundation for the building. It is thanks to this decision that you are able to see this exhibition today, though a complete excavation of the old palace is impossible as it would leave the theater foundationless. Almost everything displayed is a reconstruction of what was theoretically once there; the only things left over from Peter's time are some walls, a splotch of paint, and a 1726 bottle of wine found nearly three centuries later during excavation. Curiosity and thirst overcame any sense of obligation the lucky workers may have had, and rather than turning the bottle in to the museum they tried drinking it, but it had long gone bad.

Peter's palace includes the Small Chambers, which you're only allowed see through the windows (the guide justifies this by saying that there's no way an entire excursion group could fit in there, but seeing how ten thousand people can jam into one trolleybus this is hard to believe). Inside, among other things, are items demonstrating that Peter was a hard-working guy who liked a good laugh - an old lathe shares space with a joke divan, that with the help of a large spring mechanism, ejected would-be sitters into the air.

The palace complex also features an early version of central heating, where one central wood-burning stove would distribute heat to four stoves in various rooms. Peter designed the system himself because he hated servants entering his work area. There's also a room of portraits of Peter's family, including his second son whose premature death caused him to change the law of succession, and a wax dummy of Peter (again visible only through a window) with his original smock and shoes - for such a big guy, Peter, like the rest of the Romanovs, had small feet.

Dvortsovaya Naberezhnaya 34, entrance from the Neva Embankment. Metro: Nevsky Prospekt then trolleys 1, 7 or 10 to Dvortsovaya Ploshchad or 15 minute walk. Open 10:30-18:00, closed Mondays. Recorded information in Russian: 219 8625; Excursion bureau open 10:30-15:30. Tel: 311 3725 (Russian only, annoyingly enough).