We did a cruise to St Petersburg last year and loved it. Originally, I was going to book excursions through the ship in large group in order to feel safe having the same concerns as you did. In the end, we wanted to do specific things (like visiting the Faberge Egg Museum which the ship did not offer) so we ended up with a private guide doing day trips over 3 days. We did evening excursions through our ship as they were exclusive events where the entire venue (Hermitage and Catherine Palace), was empty except for our ship's excursion group of 50-60 people.

It was pretty obvious we were a gay couple the way my partner rabbits on about the places we have visited together and other personal details along with the way we dress; straw hats, striped jackets like a barbershop quartet and co-respondent/spectator shoes. Our guide had no problem finding us in a crowd of people. Our guide was a young lady and she did appear to enjoy chatting to us. Noting your username, I am certain that my partner told the guide that he was with the London Gay Men's Chorus and had sung at the Sydney Opera House even. I think she was a teacher outside the tourist season.

When it comes to people working in the tourism, continuing business matters and money counts. Just avoid talking politics directly. They are not going to risk their tip by upsetting you or the rest of their group. Also, the majority of tour guides do happen to be women. Can across one male tour guide with the ship's excursions and his personal view were more American than Russian.

I totally understand your concerns given the US/UK press but our personal experience in St Petersburg is very different. Just stick with the tour group. We did not interact much other than with the guide or the waiters at the restaurants we went to. The driver spoke minimal English.

If it was only us, we probably would have cancel this cruise but we had two US couples who were coming on this cruise to celebrate my big birthday so we felt we could not cancel. In the end, they had a guide for 4 and we had a separate guide for 2 as we wanted to do different things (like fitting in 2 hour posh lunches and finishing by 2/3 pm as we had evening excursions as well).

One personal take away is that we showed someone in Russia that as a gay couple, we lead ordinary lives, toured the world as many people do and hopefully we are no different to other Russian ordinary people.

We found the St Petersburg immigration inspection is a formality. You just need to show your "tour ticket" and find you on the list of passenger that the tour firm has supplied them with. You go through person by person and you each present your tour ticket and your passport. They know you are there on a cruise and you are merely going to visit some tourist attraction. They know the tour firm is obligated to bring you back to the port terminal and are not allowed to leave you on your own in the City. As such, they ask you very little. I suspect many are not that conversant in English as well and are happy to stamp your passport if you are presenting the same paperwork as others from the cruise ship. You have to do this each time you left the ship so we went through this process five times in the three days we were there. The inspection is very different to if you flying into an airport as an independent traveller.