souvenirs, shopping

The main shopping street is Nevskiy Prospekt. Painters will sell you a portrait. Musicians will play you a tune. Stall holders will offer you fruit and socks. And the expensive boutiques that line the avenue will sell you all the finery you can afford.

The superstore of Nevskiy is Gostinyi Dvor - roughly meaning Merchant Yard - a shopping mall from late 18th century. It has been the largest in St Petersburg but will be dwarfed by the new Galleria Shopping Centre, now under construction farther along Nevskiy at Insurrection Square (Ploshchad Vosstaniya).

Another historical shopping area, Apraksin Dvor, between Gostinyi Dvor and the River Fontanka, has now been closed and the area is officially under reconstruction. There are still a few stalls hidden in dark corners, but Apraksin Dvor lost its dangerous charm as a flea market.

The sale of second-hand items and new souvenirs to tourist is now concentrated in the Graidka, Petersburg slang for flowerbed. It is just behind the Church of our Saviour on Spilled Blood, close to the Moyka Canal.

What is worth buying depends on whether you're looking for souvenirs for yourself or gifts for friends back home. But the shopping itself is half of the fun.

RECORDINGS & BOOKS
Many visitors who are staying for several nights in St Petersburg choose to spend one evening at the opera or ballet, at the Mariinsky or Mussorgsky Theatres, for example. In that case, a recording of the programme will help you relive your trip far into the future.

No nation in the world has made a greater contribution to music than Russia. Admittedly, fine interpretations of Russian music are available everywhere, but a recording bought on the spot has special value.

Russia has a strong publishing tradition and has always produced excellent books. An illustrated compendium of its fairy tales and folk legends will charm any child. A coffee table book of photographs will spellbind adults, too.

ART & ANTIQUES
At the end of the 19th century, the Tsar and royal family were already poorer than the nation's top industrialists, just as today's oligarchs are much wealthier than the political elite. For Russians, wealth brings social responsibility, often expressed in sponsorship of the arts.

St Petersburg has been a capital of a great empire, to which the most skilled artists and craftsmen gravitated. It remains a centre of the newly wealthy today. The city has two major art academies and is full of galleries and art shops.

Take advantage of the regular exhibitions and take home contemporary paintings, ceramics, sculpture and photographs.

SOUVENIRS & GIFTS
The Baltic is one of the world's main areas for amber, the fossil resin of trees that lived 30-90 million years ago. St Petersburg is also associated with amber because of its Amber Room, originally given by the King of Prussia to Tsar Peter the Great.

Amber is one of the keepsakes offered to visitors to St Petersburg, but it is not naturally found in the region. The biggest reserves of Baltic amber are in Kaliningrad in the southern Baltic, 1000 km (600 miles) away. No cruises call in Kaliningrad.

Lithuania produces a lot of amber and the shops of Tallinn sell it too, although for higher prices that they usually ask in St Petersburg. Ultimately the problem with amber is that it looks a lot like yellow plastic. If you're not careful, it may be.

Other souvenirs include knitwear, scarves, blouses, purses, gloves, hats and of course nested dolls. If your ship has called at any ports along the south of the Baltic, you will have been offered them before, but the Russians invented these dolls and the best are here.

Properly made, they are hand-turned of linden wood, hand painted and lacquered several times. Except for the tiniest, each matryoshka doll opens to reveal another inside. The themes of sets are often traditional dresses or fairy tales. Sometimes they are caricatures of celebrities or leaders.

The first Fabergé egg, in 1885, was designed on the same principle. Its white enamel shell contained a yolk of real gold, which contained a chicken with ruby eyes, which in turn contained a ruby pendant and a diamond replica of the Imperial crown. A wooden matryoshka will not set you back quite as much.