|
Shopping in St. Petersburg
The city offers to visitors a great variety of products and services, including handicrafts, souvenirs, art pieces, cheap CDs and DVDs, antiques and groceries. Most commercial establishments are located at Nevsky Prospekt (the most festive street in the city) and at Bolshoi Prospekt in the Vasilyevski Island.
You can pay by credit card in most stores, but they only accept rubles. If you want to pay at cash, you must exchange money in the authorized points (there are several money exchange houses at Nevsky Prospekt but you must carry your passport).
One of the most peculiar places in Saint Petersburg to do shopping is Yunona Fair; it is the main bootleg center in the city. There, you can find almost every thing that wish since pirates CDs or DVDs until a Kalashnikov rifle. The best day to visit this fair is on Saturday when another great fair is installed just in front of Yuyona; it is a kind of massive garage sale, where it is possible to find many Soviet antiques and souvenirs. Usually this fair opens from Tuesday to Sunday from 10:00 to 20:00. It is located at 40 Marshal Kazakova Prospekt.
Saint Petersburg is one of the best cities in the World to buy antiques and art works; the city is full of art galleries, which offer to visitors a great variety of Russian antiques, and art works of local and foreign artists; including paintings, bronze sculptures, fine crystal and porcelain. Some souvenir and art stores in Saint Petersburg are: Arteria (32-34 Nevsky Prospekt), Babushka Art Store(33 Naberezhnaya Leitenanta Shmidta), Imperator (3 Ulitsa Dekabristov), Onegin(11 Italianskaya Ulitsa), Babushka Art Store (33 Naberezhnaya Leitenanta Shmidta) amongst other.
One of the most famous commercial establishments in Saint Petersburg since the XVIII century has been the Bolshoy Gostiny Dvor. It is a yellow building located in the Downtown which is composed by many stores. There, it can find a great selection of music, souvenirs and caviar, in addition to there are also several designer boutiques and other clothes stores, located in the second floor of the building. It is located at 35 Nevsky Prospekt and opens from 10:00 to 22:00 every day.
The books are also popular items to buy in this city, since many important Russian writers like Pushkin or Dostoyevksy wrote part of his works inspired by this city. Besides, Saint Petersburg is considered the cultural capital of the country; therefore, there are many good bookstores where it can find excellent books to relatively cheap prices. Unfortunately most books are in Cyrillic alphabet; nevertheless, also there are many books in foreign language, mainly in English. Some of the best places to buy books in the city are: Academic Books on Liteiny Prospekt (books in several language, 57 Liteiny Prospekt), House of Books (“Dom Knigi”, 28 Nevsky Prospekt), Chance on Sadovaya (“Shans na Sadovoi”, 40 Sadovaya Ulitsa), etc.
Another good experience is to see how shopping the local citizens. The best way to know the local living style is walk through the local grocery markets. Saint Petersburg has several former groceries like Kuznechny Market (3 Kuznechny Pereulok), Vasilyeostrovsky Market (18 Bolshoi Prospekt) or Sennoi Market (4/6 Moskovsky Prospekt); where it can buy many excellent products like fresh fish, meat, fruits, etc.
Back to:
Russian in St. Petersburg
Russian in Russia
Russian courses
| 
Send to a friend
