Saint Petersburg was founded by Peter the Great in 1703. For 200 years (1712 - 1917) St.Petersburg was the capital of the Russian Empire. It is a scientific, educational and cultural centre of Russia. In the Internet you can find as many sites, devoted to our city as you wish. Enjoy its beauty!       Kolpino We live in Kolpino, a working-class town which grew up around the Izhorsky Factory during the 18th century. Today, this factory produces steel and various machinery for metallurgy, the chemical industry, power company engineering, and the army and navy. It exports its products to 32 countries.       Pushkin (Tsarskoye Selo) The town is 26 km from St.Petersburg. It was named after A.Pushkin. It was the former residence of the tsars. There you can see the Great Catherine Palace, a large collection of paintings, the "Amber Room", parks with monuments and the former Lyseum, where the great Russian poet studied.       Pavlovsk is two kilometres away from Pushkin and 25 km from St Petersburg. The town of Pavlovsk is one of the finest landscape parks in Europe and unrivalled example of palace and landscape architecture of the second half of the 18th century. Note: in the park the main entertainment is feeding squirrels. Take nuts with you!       Strelna One of the most ancient inhabited places on southern coast of the Gulf of Finland - lies about 20 km away from the city. The construction of palace and park ensembles was not very successful nevertheless we love Strelna as a place where our yacht club was situated. Now it is the Russian president Putin's residence.       The Necklace of Pearls - this is what we often call the palace and park ensembles around St Petersburg, all of them being places of architectural and historical interest. Summer residences for the czarist family and St Petersburg nobility were built and decorated by the best architects and masters of the two centuries. Only some of these towns are represented here.