The Cabin of Peter the Great is the oldest building in St Petersburg, a small wooden house built in 1703 for the tsar while his new city was still more ambition than fact. The cabin now sits inside a protective brick pavilion, so the outside view is not the original timber facade, but the scale is still strikingly modest.
The museum is small, and that is the point. After the palaces and cathedrals, it is useful to see the city begin with a rough summer house by the Neva. Two Chinese stone lions on the quay add a curious final detail.