ST. PETERSBURG -- It sits on the Gulf of Mexico, not the Gulf of Finland and it does not have a Winter Palace -- or even a winter season. But Florida's St. Petersburg will share its namesake's imperial splendor when it becomes the first city ever to exhibit Czar Nicholas II and his wife Alexandra's personal treasure collection in December 1993.


The collection has been gathering dust in the Hermitage's vaults ever since 1918, when the Bolsheviks shot Russia's last czar along with his wife and children in a basement in Yekaterinburg.


"When that comes over it's going to be a real coup", said the Florida city's mayor, David Fischer. "The west coast of Florida will have an exhibit, maybe the largest and one of the most significant ever in the southeast. and I think the fact that it's Nicholas and Alexandra, and items that have never been shown before either in Russia or the world will give it a mystique. I think it will be tremendous".


St. Petersburg's Florida Cultural Exhibitions, a nonprofit organization, plans to spend a princely $5. 5 million to display the items. One million dollars has already been earmarked to transform an empty department store into an exhibition hall fit for a czar.


"You're going to think you've walked into a czar's palace when it's all over", Fischer said.


The exhibition will reflect Russian court life during the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries and be insured for tens of millions of dollars, according to Mikhail Peotrovsky, director of the Hermitage Museum. It will consist of about 400 objects including clothing, icons, jewelry, paintings and even the gold eagle, symbol of the Russian Imperium, that hung over the czar's throne, Peotrovsky said.


Fischer will also discussing the two cities with Mayor Anatoly Sobchak.