St. Pete: Put at least two days aside for the
Hermitage. So much beautiful art there. Also a fun thing to do is see how close you can get to a piece of artwork before the babushka gets off her chair to yell at you. Also go out to
Ekaterina's summer palace (Екатерининский дворец). Well worth the drive out there. The amber room, despite not having any amber left (damn Nazis), is just wonderful to be in. To imagine the grandeur and pomp of that time period. Also all the churches there...wonderful. I liked walking along the canals, listening to all the various languages spoken around. If you walk by Furshtatskaya Ulitsa, 15, and could take a picture for me, I'd appreciate it.
There's also a very nice
Dom Knigi on Nevsky that overlooks the avenue. Get your book-fix there. (Although, if you can wait till Moscow, do.) Oh! And I never made it out to
Kronshtadt Island, but friends who did said it was a nice trip.
Moscow: My God, where to begin. First off, the metro is so easy and cheap. Use it for everything. Now things to see. The
WWII museum (Музей Победы, use the Park Pobedy metro stop, which also happens to be the deepest. Takes 2:45 to go down the escalator!) is simply incredible. There's a room there with crystals hanging from the ceiling, one for every Russian killed in the War. Yes, 6 million. Simply moving. The entire park is wonderful to walk around. Good chance you'll see some WWII vets walking around there. If they have a medal hanging from their chest, red ribbon with a gold star hanging below it, they're a hero of the Soviet Union.
Over at
Gorky Park (Park Kultury metro), after you've walked through the park and possibly ridden the super expensive roller coaster, go across the street to the
Tretyakov museum. Before going in, walk through the sculpture park. Beautiful. Inside the Tretyakov, well what can I say. Art you've only seen in books. Amazing.
If the day is beautiful, go out to
Tsaritsyno Palace (Царицыно, and the metro is called the same). Wonderful to walk around and great place for pictures.
For cheap(er) souvenirs, go to
Izmailovo (Измайлово, but don't get off at the Izmailovskaya metro stop. Get off one short of that, Partizanskaya, and follow the crowds to the market. You'll see what looks like fairy-tale buildings...go that way). Cheaper everything there, way cheaper than the souvenir shops on the Old Arbat (also worth visiting, see below).
Before going to the
Kremlin and
Red Square, go to
Old Arbat street (many stops possible, the two Smolenskaya's and the two Arbatskaya's). Very fun pedestrian street. A small Pushkin monument there (Памятник Александру Пушкину и Наталье Гончаровой). If you and Meddysong are gonna get married (if you're not already), then you need to get a picture in front of Mrs. Pushkin. Eat at Mumu if you haven't by this time (ул. Арбат, 45/24) and get a picture with the cow out front. Best Russian food and pretty cheap for Moscow. There's also one exception here on Old Arbat with respect to souvenirs:
Арбатская лавица at Old Arbat, 27. It's where all the souvenir artists/producers send their rejects. But you wouldn't know it. We got almost all our lacquer trays from there. Have no idea why they were rejected but they were beautiful. More expensive than Izmailovo, but cheaper than any other souvenir shop in Moscow center. (Btw, your embassy is not a far cry from Old Arbat and Novyy Arbat, if you need anything. Right on the Moscow river at Смоленская наб., 10.)
Take the
Kremlin tour. Awesome. Tsar Bell. Tsar Cannon. Ekaterina's dresses. Everything. Worth the money and the time waiting/walking. In
Red Square, walk through
GUM. Coffee was about the only thing we ever could afford to buy there. Go see
Lenin; rumor has it the Russians are gonna bury him someday. Don't put your hands in your pockets while in the mausoleum.
St. Basil's is worth going into too. Don't go upstairs until you're done on the first floor; you can't come back down and once on the 2nd floor, the only way out is to exit!
When done on Red Square, go down Nikolskaya (runs SW to NE, between GUM and the
State Historical Museum, also worth a visit) until you see a huge yellow building in front of you. That's
Lyubanka, former HQ of the KGB and current HQ of the FSB. To the right of that building is the #1 best bookstore in Moscow,
Biblio Globus, at Мясницкая ул., 6/3. Check it out, but if you are buying anything, use cash. "Foreign" credit cards never worked for us there. On the left side of Lyubanka is one of the best restaurants in town:
GlavPivTorg. It's on ул. Большая Лубянка, 5, all mahogany, so pretty. They used to do a Sunday brunch, hope they still do. Took a new embassy employee there, he had Russian grandparents. Imagine this big, 6'2" lug of a guy looking at the brunch spread, with his eyes starting to water. "I haven't seen food like this since before my grandparents died in the early '90s." The food was incredible. Hopefully they're still doing the brunch. Restaurant is worth going to anyway. They have the Ukrainian version of borscht, too, which I love.
Go to the
Pushkin State Museum at ул. Волхонка, 12. Get off at Kropotskinskaya and walk around the
Cathedral of Christ the Savior. Pushkin is across the street. Worth a visit.
There are some Esperanto sights to see in Moscow, too. If you're interested in this, let me know and I'll get addresses for you from Boris Kolker's wonderful book
Vojaĝo en Esperanto-lando.
Enjoy! Take lots of pictures!
I feel like my head is spinning after reading about Kiev, Moscow and St Petersburg in the same weekend 
They all offer you to taste a tiny portion for free before choosing what you want. I left most ice cream stands without buying anything, but I couldn't resist a gelato because it totally tasted like the Italian one. I tried all the tastes first, though 
I took her to a Russian sauna (баня) for example.
). If possible, don't use any transport at that time, other than during the weekend 
