Things to Do in St. Petersburg in December

The Hermitage is the December move. Over three million works spread through the mint-green-and-gold Winter Palace, warm enough that you can pour your whole thin daylight window into it while snow piles up on Palace Square outside. The thin winter foreign crowds mean you can stand alone in front of the two Leonardos and linger in the Rembrandt hall instead of being shoved past them. The Jordan Staircase alone, all white marble and gilt under the cold light from tall windows, is worth the entry. Plan on at least half a day, longer if the Impressionists upstairs pull you in.

December is high ballet season, and the Nutcracker, which had its 1892 premiere in this city, runs all month at the Mariinsky and the Mikhailovsky. This is the warmest and most quintessentially St. Petersburg way to spend a pitch-black December evening: velvet seats, a gilt ceiling, the muffled tuning of an orchestra, then three hours of Tchaikovsky while it snows outside. Even if you don't know ballet, the building and the ritual carry the night. Dress up. Soak it in.

From late November the city strings Nevsky Prospekt, Palace Square, and Ostrovsky Square with lights and tall fir trees. The trick December plays in your favor here: blue hour arrives by mid-afternoon, so the illuminations are already glowing while you're still comfortably out walking. You get the crunch of fresh snow underfoot, the smell of roasting chestnuts from market carts, and the lit facades of the Stroganov Palace and Kazan Cathedral reflecting off wet, dark cobbles. Pure magic.

New Holland, the restored 18th-century naval island near the Moika, floods its central courtyard into the city's most-loved winter rink, ringed with strung lights and food kiosks. Skating laps with steam coming off your breath, a hot drink waiting at the edge, brick warehouses lit up around you. It's where Petersburg families go on a December weekend, not a tourist set piece, and the surrounding cafes and design shops give you somewhere warm to retreat between sessions. Skate like a local.

About 25 km (15.5 miles) south in the town of Pushkin, Catherine Palace's long blue-and-white baroque facade and the reconstructed Amber Room make an indoor spectacle that holds up in deep winter, with snow lying thick over the formal gardens outside the windows. The gilded enfilade of state rooms running the length of the palace is the kind of excess that makes you stop in the doorway. December crowds are light, which matters in the Amber Room where summer queues can be punishing. Go now.

The banya is how St. Petersburg survives the dark months. You bake in searing dry heat, take a brisk thrashing with a birch-branch venik that smells of forest and leaves your skin tingling, then hit the gasping cold plunge. Repeat until you walk out loose-limbed and glowing in the freezing street. The historic public bathhouses are a December institution here, not a spa novelty. One afternoon resets you completely after hours out in the cold and gloom.