Around 3,000 Russians held an angry protest Saturday against a controversial plan by state-run energy giant Gazprom to build a huge skyscraper in the country's former imperial capital.

Demonstrators held signs saying "Gazprom go home" and "History is worth more than money" at the rally in central Saint Petersburg, one of the largest protests in the city in recent years, an AFP correspondent witnessed.

Prominent local historian Lev Lurye slammed the Gazprom project as a threat to the city's well-preserved centre, which dates back to pre-Soviet times and is considered a landmark of world cultural heritage by UNESCO.