The story
St Petersburg Sand Sculpture Festival in Saint Petersburg
The Saint Petersburg Sand Sculpture Festival refers to open-air sand sculpture exhibitions periodically staged on the sandy Neva riverbank beach beside the Peter and Paul Fortress, using the fortress's own walls and bastions as a backdrop for large-scale sand artworks.
The Peter and Paul Fortress sits on Zayachy Island in the Neva, the exact site where Peter the Great began building Saint Petersburg in May 1703, and its star-shaped bastioned walls, largely rebuilt in stone and brick over the following decades, remain one of the clearest surviving statements of the city's military and political origins.