ST. PETERSBURG, RUSSIA – The president of the Tourism Development Committee in St. Petersburg, Inna Shalyto; President and CEO of City Sightseeing Worldwide, Enrique Ybarra; and President of City Sightseeing Russia, Sergei Lavrentyev inaugurated this morning City Sightseeing St. Petersburg, the third operation of the world’s leading open top bus tour company in the country, now the main city tour operator in Russia. After the launch of City Sightseeing Moscow in 2012 and City Sightseeing Kazan in 2013, this prestige brand is now present in the three major cities of Russia, a country in the process of opening its treasures to international visitors.
City Sightseeing St. Petersburg begins operations in ‘The Baltic Pearl’ with four panoramic double decker buses, custom made by the Spanish bodybuilder UNVI on Volvo chassis, with a transparent cover for the colder months that can be opened in the warmer months. The launch of this service has involved an investment of two million Euros.
Left to right: Sergei Lavrentyev, president of City Sightseeing Russia; Nikolai Bragin (City Sightseeing Russia); Enrique Ybarra, President and CEO of City Sightseeing Worldwide; Yuri Bragin (City Sightseeing Russia); Roman Krylov (City Sightseeing Russia); and Mandy Gaughan (City Sightseeing Worldwide).
City Sightseeing’s tour of St. Petersburg covers the main attractions of the city, especially those in the Central and Admiralty districts, and lasts 90 minutes. During the journey, travelers can access and follow entertaining commentaries created by the historians of St. Petersburg Institute of Hospitality, which can be enjoyed simultaneously in 12 languages: English, Russian, German, Italian, Chinese, Turkish, Finnish, Spanish, French, Japanese, Korean and Arabic.
Founded by Tsar Peter the Great in 1703 in order to become “Russia’s window to the West”, St. Petersburg is a great cultural destination. The city is home to more than 200 museums, many of them housed in historic buildings, with the Hermitage Museum at the forefront of these. Furthermore, the historic center of the city and other monuments have been classified as World Heritage Sites by UNESCO, highlighting the Baroque and neoclassical buildings style that survived or have been painstakingly reconstructed following the siege of Leningrad during World War II.
City Sightseeing St. Petersburg users can toggle the tourist bus tour with a boat tour on the Neva river organised by Astra-Marine and embark at four piers located along the bus route.
