I lived in St. Petersburg for four years, but trying to fit in and do as the locals do, I did all my yarn shopping in Finland. The only crafts shop I visited back in those days was a Singer shop on Suvorovsky prospekt, and only for emergency needle shopping. Last weekend we visited our old neighborhood and I thought that it would be time to check out a yarn store or two during the trip. I tried to ask for tips of nice LYS in St. Petersburg, but unfortunately the only one mentioned was Manefa, which is located in Pionerskaya and that was a bit off our planned track. After some googling (or actually its Russian version yandexing) I found a LYS right next to Finland station and with a pretty appealing selection of yarns. That's my destination then!

Magia priazi is a nice little LYS and I ended up getting some lovely souvenirs. Nothing Russian, though... They have a nice selection of brands, but unfortunately not in colors I would have liked - except for some lovely Jaipur Silk Fino.


I also got a set of KnitPro needles. This wasn't such a good idea, as it turned out that two of the needles were damaged and KnitPro warranty says that you need to go back to the reseller for replacement. Well, good thing is that Business woman does business in St. Petersburg, so she will get to visit the nice little yarn shop on her next business trip... I liked the KnitPros that I bought in Moscow, but they felt more like wood than this set. To me the needles feel like plastic and I might go back to my old bamboo needles after all.