🌳 Pionerskaya Square (Semyonovsky Parade Ground)

A spacious square in front of the Youth Theatre with lawns, paths and a monument to Griboyedov.

The 26-hectare Semyonovsky Parade Ground took shape by the barracks of the Moscow, Jaeger and Semyonovsky regiments at the turn of the 19th century.
In 1836–1837 Russia's first passenger railway was laid from the parade ground to Tsarskoye Selo and Pavlovsk.
In 1849 a mock execution of the Petrashevsky circle was staged here; Dostoevsky was among those pardoned at the last moment.
On 3 April 1881 the People's Will members who killed Alexander II — Zhelyabov, Perovskaya, Kibalchich and others — were hanged on the parade ground.
In the 1880s the Semyonovsky Hippodrome was built here to a design by Leontiy Benois; it was destroyed in the Siege.
The monument to Griboyedov by Vsevolod Lishev was unveiled in 1959, and the Youth Theatre building in May 1962.

Part of these routes