ST. PETERSBURG, RUSSIA ? St. Petersburg celebrates its 300th anniversary next year. Seeking to beguile the world, the city is busily renovating some of its hundreds of worn palaces, mansions and monuments.

To help pay for this makeover, the Committee for the State Inspection and Protection of Historic Monuments is asking for donations from both Russian and foreign businesses, foundations and well-heeled individuals.

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Some of the former capital city’s monuments were rescued on a case-by-case basis during the 1990s with the aid of corporate giants, such as Coca-Cola and American Express. But in recent years the city’s leaders have launched an organized effort to persuade donors to repair sculptures, replace street lamps, restore monuments and rebuild fountains.

To do this, they’re lobbying diplomats and corporate executives. And to reach other potential donors around the world, they’ve created an English-language Web site, listing a menu of 131 adoptable historic structures, ranging from humble gravestones to the facades of mansions at prices ranging from $3,000 to $1.7 million.

The task facing the officials in charge of repairing St. Petersburg is staggering. The city then known as Leningrad decayed badly in the decades the Soviet Union spiraled toward collapse. Today, there is still not enough money to do more than a fraction of the work needed to restore its former grandeur.

In seeking aid, St. Petersburg residents don’t want to sound like beggars. Olga Taratynova, deputy chairwoman of the monuments committee, says most of the work planned in preparation for the anniversary will be paid for by the government. President Vladimir Putin, a former deputy mayor of the city, has pledged $67 million for the effort.

“The most important monuments, which demand critical repairs, will be repaired by the state,” she says.

Everything won’t be finished in time, officials admit. But Taratynova says the city is proud of its worn-at-the-elbows look. “As for European towns, well-polished and well-paved, they get on my nerves,” she says. “I would rather compare St. Petersburg to Venice, which is not as well renovated. The Japanese approach to beauty is that real beauty should have a touch of the ancient in it.”

Still, the monuments committee has its hand out. It’s asking $5,000 for the restoration of two glass windows at the mansion where the celebrated novelist Vladimir Nabokov spent his youth. It wants $300,000 to re-create two soaring stained-glass windows that depicted traders through history, and once graced the Yeliseyev Brothers Trade House.

One high-profile project that has had no trouble attracting donors is the renovation of the Konstantinovsky Palace in Strelna, south of St. Petersburg. Putin plans to use it as a presidential retreat like Camp David and has pressed businesses in Russia to contribute to the cause. In just the past year, he has raised more than $15 million of the estimated $150 million cost, a presidential spokesman says.