Winter In St. Petersburg

At once regal and revolutionary, St Petersburg in winter is Russian history frozen in a gloriously gilt-edged frame

- Jonathan Bastable

St Petersburg’s Eliseyev Emporium is a great building in a city of wonderful architecture. The exterior, with its enormous stained glass frontage, is a madcap piece of pre-revolutionary Art Nouveau, but the really surreal sights are inside. All around the shop are étagères stacked with sweetmeats: halva and marzipan and walnuts pickled in syrup—a perennial Russian favourite. You can buy a bust of Lenin made from 3kg of white chocolate and matryoshka dolls filled with drazhye (boiled sweets) along with the sugar plums of Tchaikovsky’s dancing fairy. The glass-topped patisserie cabinets are full of éclairs piped with inscriptions (‘S novym godom!’—Happy New Year!). Elsewhere there are rounds of rye bread the size of boulders, cheeses flavoured with pungent herbs, thick orange sides of smoked salmon like the lolling tongues of dragons. A ghostly pianola plays itself, cranking out ragtime tunes, and the whole place is suffused in rainbow light from those coloured windows. Go at dusk for afternoon tea; it’s an experience you will never forget.