🏛 Anichkov Bridge (Klodt's horses)

A bridge over the Fontanka on Nevsky with four bronze sculptures of a man taming a horse at its corners.

The bridge is named after the settlement of Lieutenant Colonel Mikhail Anichkov's battalion — he also built the first, wooden bridge here in 1716.
The current bridge was built in record time in 1841: the first stone was laid on 22 May and traffic opened on 20 November.
The cast-iron railing copies that of Schinkel's Palace Bridge in Berlin — Nicholas I liked its pattern.
Nicholas I gave the first pair of Klodt's bronze horses to the King of the Two Sicilies, and in 1846 they were sent to Naples.
While plaster copies stood on the bridge, Petersburgers joked that the horses would never come back; the bridge was fully completed in 1851.
In October 1941 the sculptures were taken down and buried in the garden of the Anichkov Palace to save them from the bombing.
The pedestal of the north-west group kept the marks of a shell, with a plaque about the 148,478 shells fired at Leningrad.