If anyone is planning on a visit to the Baltic region or preferably St Petersburg Russia, or would like to, post in response to this thread.
I live in St Petersburg but travel to other areas of the Baltic and can provide advice and contacts for photographic pursuits.
St Petersburg is one of the most beautiful and fascinating cities in the world and is a popular destination for photographers. Being in an incoming tourism field I have a lot of contacts with museums, theaters and palaces that tourists do not so shooting in closed-to-the-public museums and palaces might be arranged.

About 600,000 people arrive each year on the popular cruise ships that dock in St Petersburg each summer for 2-3 days port calls. Many of those visitors are photographers but they don't know how to have access or know contacts to make use of their time in the city so most just go on packaged group tours.
It would be a shame to come all this way to one of the most photogenic and historic cities and not get many photo opportunities.
If I am busy when you are here, at least I can give advice as to how to get the most out of a visit since few foreigners know the city and its history as well as I do.
Currently I am in California visiting family and return to St Petersburg December 10.
Stan
St Petersburg Russia

Visit my Nikonians gallery.

We will be on a Crystal Cruise Baltic Sea cruise in June.

Dates in St. Petersburg will be, Sunday June 27, Monday June 28, & Tuesday June 29.

Right now we have talked about tours and being with another couple (the man in that couple will have his Sony camera; might be interested in what I do) -- but let me know if you will be there on those dates.

We also visit, Oslo, Copenhagen, Visby (island), Helsinki, and Stockholm. Any suggestions for those cities would be great, also.

Would be glad for any assistance you have to offer. A key problem, as I understand it, is if we are with a tour, no visa is needed. If we go off on our own -- we need a visa. At this point in time we were not going to do the paper work for a visa.

Thoughts . . . Roger

Visit my Nikonians gallery.

Visit my Nikonians gallery.

Hi Roger
Sorry for the delay in responding, I did not see an email from the forum script that I subscribed to.
Yes, I will be in St Petersburg during those dates but I need to go to California on the 10th to renew my visa. I just flew from St Petersburg to California yesterday and will return "home" on the 23rd of March. I have been gone for just two days and I already miss it;>)
The visa law allows cruise ship passengers to enter without a visa if a few simple conditions are met:
1 Arrive and depart on a cruise ship to St Petersburg(and one other far eastern Russia port)
2 Be in-country for 72 hours or less
3 Hosted or supervised by an authorized tour company or their representative.
4 Must return to the ship for sleeping(not using a land based hotels) although staying out all night and not sleeping is fine.
5 Have a valid passport from any country.
That is it. So a tour can be anything by this rule, from a set itinerary group tour to just walking around doing as you please but in the presence of a guide who works for an authorized tour operator.
A lot of people use a pre-planned private tour designed around their interests and touring style preferences during the day when palaces and museums are open and then turn it into a free form, unplanned exploration in the evening. The sun will be out far into the morning hours at that time of the year since it is at the peak of "White Nights" when the sun finally sets for about 1 hour starting at 2:30 A.M. but never gets dark.
White Nights is a period of a great many festivals and events, many planned every day including international film, classical music, jazz and art festivals, the Volvo open ocean yacht races finishing, sports, ballet, the Stars of the White Nights performance festival that has a month of the best ballet, opera and classical music performances by the worlds top stars, dance competition finals in ballroom, and ballet, a GP, lots of popular music concerts, and much more. So it is also very crowded with people coming from the world over to participate. The museums and palaces will be crowded during that time.
For only 3 days getting a visa is not cost effective but it is long enough to see a lot if your time is planned a bit.
What sorts of things are you interested in? There are 254 museums on just about any subject you might be interested in. The main attraction however is simply the city and culture itself. If you are planning a photo trip, finding the best vantage points without too many people in the way might take some flexibility. I generally shoot less in the summer because of the crowds in the major destinations such as Peterhof, Catherine Palace, the Winter Palace and Hermitage.
If you have specific questions I can certainly answer them, there are few foreigners who know more about the city and its history.

Stan
St Petersburg Russia

Visit my Nikonians gallery.