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All Night Long
Summertime in St. Petersburg? Celebrate the classics from dawn to dusk.
With the flood of European music festivals this summer, you could be forgiven for losing track of where best to be — and when. So let’s make this easy: when it comes to classical pickings, put St. Petersburg in your diary. From May 18, Russia’s most treasured city, plays host to over 100 performances over the course of 10 weeks. And if you head there around the summer solstice, you’ll enjoy the fabled Belye Nochy — the White Nights of the world’s northernmost big city, where night bleeds into morning with barely a half-hour of twilight. The Stars of White Nights festival, which will be held at the historic Mariinsky Ballet and Opera House, features a playbill that includes popular works by Wagner and Tchaikovsky, as well as a centennial celebration of the birth of Shostakovich. For lodging, it’s a toss up between Rocco Forte’s exquisitely remade Hotel Astoria on St Isaac’s Square, and St. Petersburg’s “new” kid on the block — Kempinski Hotel Moika, housed in a 19th-century neoclassical palace opposite the Hermitage. Which reminds us — if you don’t do Russia’s greatest museum while you’re in town, you’ve only got yourself to blame.
read more: 02. Sleep | historic | 10. Culture | art | performance