The Arch, the Zoo and For-
est Park — places that

nearly every St. Louis res-
ident knows and has experienced.

When asked to describe the city,
it’s almost a given that one of
these well-known spots will come
up, as they’ve become emblems of
the rich culture and history of St.

Louis. But beyond these few no-
table locations that only seem to

skim the surface, how well do St.
Louisans really know the city that
they call home?
For social studies teacher
Conner Katsev, this is a topic he’s
passionate to master. Currently,
he is in the process of becoming a

St. Louis tour guide and is learn-
ing new information every day.

“I’ve lived in St. Louis my
whole life,” Katsev said. “When I
was asked to join the team and do
the tours, I loved it because I’m
going to be teaching [History of

St. Louis] for the foreseeable fu-
ture, and it’s a way for me to earn a

little bit of money in the summer,
but also just learn myself too.”

The tours, based through the
Missouri History Museum, offer
a diverse range of options when it
comes to exploring the city.
“There’s public tours, there’s
private tours, they do everything,”
Katsev said. “They take big bus
tours around the whole city, or

you can choose a particular neigh-
borhood. They do architectural

tours, even urban renewal tours.”

The parallels between this pur-
suit and his History of St. Louis

class have led Katsev to become
better equipped in both domains.
“What’s so cool is they can take
an area of St. Louis and they’ll just
start researching it to a degree

I’ve never even seen before,” Kat-
sev said. “It’s humbling because I

can teach a whole class on St. Lou-
is, but I’m also like, ‘Whoa, I don’t

know anything.’”
Going through the training

process has helped Katsev to de-
velop ideas on the approach he

wants to take when certified.
“I’ve learned it’s not just me
throwing information at people,
you’ll get bored of that quick,”
Katsev said. “It’s more about what
connections we can bring in.”

Certified tour guide Amanda
Clark agrees with this criteria.
She believed Katsev would be a
good fit and invited him to join the
group at See STL Tours.
“A great tour guide is able to
make information meaningful
to the people in front of [them],
instead of a scripted rundown of
facts,” Clark said. “I meet folks
that are great at doing that, but

need to be trained on St.Louis his-
tory — Mr. Katsev had all of that.”

This sense of meaning is ev-
erywhere, not only between indi-
viduals and the information they

encounter, but also woven into
the city and the nation as a whole.
“St. Louis can be viewed as a

microcosm of the whole Unit-
ed States,” Katsev said. “Those

national connections are where
I want to infuse my [tours]. For
example, next to WashU there’s

a university called Fauci Univer-
sity where three Black students

locked themselves in the library
and wrote a manifesto to protest
during the civil rights movement.

So while similar things are hap-
pening in the nation, there’s also

stuff happening in St. Louis.”