🌅 Bezborodko Dacha Pier with Sphinxes

Свердловская наб., напротив д. 40

A granite pier with four sphinxes — a view of the Neva and Smolny.

The pier was built in the 1780s during the rebuilding of the Bezborodko estate.
The original sphinxes vanished without trace in the second half of the 19th century.
The present sphinxes are copies from the Stroganov Dacha, made when the pier was restored in the 1950s.
Behind the arch with a lion mascaron is a grotto where, in Bezborodko's day, an underground passage to the main house began.
Each sphinx is about a metre long; all four have women's faces in headscarves.

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