Stock markets........money.......and literary giants....

The Old Saint Petersburg Stock Exchange sits on Vasilevsky Island, just across the Neva River from the Winter Palace. The Rostral Columns serve as twin beacons for ships navigating the river.

In the early 1700s, Peter the Great commissioned the Peter and Paul Fortress at the river delta to defend the city against attacks by the Swedes. The structure later became a prison, which held a long list of famous detainees, among them Dostoyevsky, Gorky, and Trotsky.