St. Petersburg. The very name brings to mind some of Russia’s greatest poets, writers and composers. Pushkin, Dostoevsky, Tchaikovsky. Well, anything goes. Everyone wants to be a little different. But many people do not know the true meaning of freedom. Personal crime has gone up, up, up in the past few years. Yet in spite of this, you can still find some of the city’s grand past. Stand at the western tip of Vasilievsky Island. To the right is the elegant Winter Palace, former home of the Czars. Its light blue sides and white classical columns make it perhaps St. Petersburg’s most graceful building. It houses one of the world’s most famous art museums, the Hermitage. Inside, 20kin of galleries house thousands of works of art.