MONUMENTS AND MEMORIALS IN ST. PETERSBURG

As might be expected of a former imperial capital, St. Petersburg is home to dozens of monuments and statues. Saint Petersburg's most famous statue is probably the Bronze Horsemans, commissioned by Catherine the Great to preserve the memory of her illustrious predecessor, Peter the Great. But there are other monuments as well. Peter is commemorated with the Tsar-Shipwright and Mikhail Shemyakin's statue in the Peter and Paul Fortress, but there are also monuments to other rulers, including Catherine the Great and Nicholas I, as well as cultural figures such as Dostoevsky. More recent feats in St Petersburg's history are commemorated by the Monument to the Defenders of Leningrad, and the Motherland statue at the Piskarevskoe memorial cemetery, where thousands of the war dead - both military and civilians - are buried.