It's a balmy midsummer night in St Petersburg. Or, rather, a midsummer morning - 4.30am to be precise. The streets are crowded with students celebrating their graduation, and tourists enjoying the white nights of late June when darkness never falls. Most cafes are still open. While other revellers queue for a Big Mac and Russian potato wedges in the McDonald's on Nevsky Prospekt, I am sitting in a nearby bar called Propaganda, drinking whisky and coffee to the background music of Led Zeppelin's greatest hits. "Been dazed and confused for so long it's not true..."
How could one not feel slightly dazed at such an hour, especially after a surfeit of vodka, caviar, opera and fireworks? I have just returned from the sumptuously restored Catherine Palace, 15 miles south of the city, a baroque blue-and-white birthday cake of a house. The palace was a favourite haunt of Catherine the Great and several succeeding Tsars; now it is the setting for the most breathtakingly lavish ball held in Russia since the October Revolution.
The 300 guests, who walk to the palace along a red carpet lined by Tsarist- uniformed soldiers bearing flaming torches, include many of the tycoons and oligarchs who have profited so extravagantly from Russia's abrupt transition to capitalism, and the political potentates who made it possible. I spot Anatoly Chubais, the Yeltsin-era prime minister who flogged off state-owned corporations at rock-bottom prices - and is now a business magnate himself.
Also present is Prince Michael of Kent, not only a relation of Nicholas II but his exact lookalike. When the prince pauses for a moment in front of a portrait of the last Tsar, the resemblance provokes gasps of delighted astonishment and intensifies the eerie sense that we have suddenly stepped back almost a hundred years. Yet Prince Michael seems to understand rather better than some of his local admirers what may happen if the new elite fails to notice the plight of those who have not benefited from Russia's "market economy". He recently became involved in a charity campaigning for the thousands of homeless people in St Petersburg - to the annoy ance of the city's mayor, who maintains that the problem of homelessness scarcely exists.
At the stroke of midnight, soon after the first course of dinner (caviar-topped hen's eggs stuffed with artichoke cream), President Putin enters the gold-encrusted dining room and seats him self at the table next to mine. A few feet beyond us are the singers, dancers and orchestra of the Kirov company, who immediately launch into an exhilarating performance of numbers from Eugene Onegin, The Sleeping Beauty and The Nutcracker. It's as if the Royal Shakespeare Company were to turn up in one's sitting room and stage a production of Richard II.
We get vodka with everything, of course: even the palate-cleansing sorbet has vodka poured on top. But although Putin drinks several toasts to the artistes, he takes only a sip each time rather than emptying the glass all at once in the traditional fashion. The same is true of his friend Viktor Cherkesov, an equally narrow-eyed and inscrutable former KGB man who was recently appointed governor-general of the entire north-western region to enforce the presidential will. Both men clearly rose through the intelligence service by remaining observantly sober while others were drinking too much - and saying too much.
There is no such icy self-control in another guest at their table. Valery Gergiev, the Kirov's brilliant young director, is gesticulating and grinning ecstatically, mani festly having the night of his life. Midway through dinner he downs a glass of vodka, rushes from his chair and conducts the orchestra in a storming Strauss waltz. "Bravo, maestro!" the man on my left shouts. "The best conductor in Russia! Number one in the world!"
The maestro strides back to his seat and gulps another vodka. The applause is ecstatic - and redoubles a few seconds later as liveried waiters carry what looks like an architect's model into the room. It turns out to be one of the pudding courses: an extraordinary five-foot-long replica of Gergiev's Mariinsky Theatre in St Petersburg, made entirely of sponge cake and fondant icing. Once the excitement has died down, the bejewelled wives of Russian millionaires start talking about their trips to London next month for the Kirov's appearance at Covent Garden.
At about 2.30am, just before we stroll into the grounds to watch a firework display and hear the inevitable 1812 Overture, a small gaggle of guests stands on the palace balcony. We gaze out in the summer half-light at the Tsarist soldiers, at the black-tied and white-gloved young men from the Kirov ballet, at the distant limousines. "It's the first event like this here since 1917," a businessman murmurs happily. "So pre-revolutionary."
Just so.
Five things to see
1 The Hermitage Museum , one of the world's great repositories of European art. Until the 1917 revolutions, it was the Winter Palace of the Tsars.
2 Mariinsky Theatre of Opera and Ballet , home of the Mariinsky - formerly the Kirov - Ballet. Considered to be the true heirs of the Russian ballet tradition, rather than the Bolshoi. See if you can catch them while they're not in London.
3 Peterhof , site of another Tsarist palace, modelled on western estates such as Versailles. Get there by hydrofoil across the Gulf of Finland.
4 Peter and Paul Fortress and Cathedral, the fortified island with the syringe-like spire above it lying opposite the Hermitage. The Romanov Tsars are buried here.
5 Liverpool, Beatles theme bar at 16 Mayakovsky Street where live tribute bands perform John, Paul, George and Ringo homages nightly from 9pm. If the kitsch is too much to bear, check out the Petersburg techno scene at Griboyedov , 2A Voronezh Street, in a former bomb shelter.
James Meek
Way to go
A three-night weekend trip with Steppes East (01285 651010, www.steppeseast.co.uk) costs £995pp including B&B accommodation at the Grand Hotel Europe, sightseeing with guide, entrance fees and private transport. A two-night weekend stay with Red House (020-7407 3558) costs £447 pp inc hotel, Gatwick flights and a visa.
