Summer and Mikhailovsky Gardens with a stroller

⏱ 3 h🚶 1.7 km🍽 1📍 4 stops

🐢 A little — under 3 km

A leisurely stroll through the two flattest gardens in the center: the statues and ponds of the Summer Garden, the Field of Mars, the Mikhailovsky Garden playground and lunch with a kids' room near Konyushennaya.

👶 With kids🏛 History and architecture🌳 Parks and nature

👶 under 3, 3–6 years · ✓ stroller-friendly

The nearby metro stations have no lifts — come by taxi. The garden paths are packed gravel. At the entrance to Goose Goose there are steps with no ramp: staff will help carry the stroller in, or you can leave it in the cloakroom.

🗺 Open in Yandex Maps

1
🌳 Summer Garden
🚪 entrance on the Moika side, by the Carp Pond
🎟 partly ticketed · The garden is free; the Summer Palace is ticketed
Peter I's garden with marble statues, fountains, the Summer Palace and the famous railing on the Neva side.
Easier to get here by taxi. Enter from the Neva or the Fontanka by 10:00, before the tours arrive. The long side avenues by the Swan Canal are the best place for a baby to nap: shade, quiet, benches. Ducks at Carpiev Pond.
📖 More about the placeCollapse
© ElenaLitera · CC BY-SA 4.0
© Florstein · CC BY-SA 4.0
© Евгений Со · CC BY-SA 3.0
- The garden was laid out by order of Peter I in 1704, on the site of the manor of the Swedish major von Konow.
- Most of the marble statues are by Italian masters of the turn of the 17th–18th century; they were bought in Italy by Peter's agents.
- The sections of the Neva railing were forged in 1773–1777 at the merchant Denisov's Tula works.
- The storm and flood of 21 September 1777 destroyed the garden's fountains, and it was then decided not to restore them.
- Rossi's Coffee House (1826) was rebuilt from the “Grotto” pavilion, and Charlemagne's wooden Tea House (1827) is finished to look like stone.
- The monument to Krylov by Pyotr Klodt was put up in 1855; the pedestal is decorated with scenes from the fables.
- After restoration the garden had its grand reopening on 27 May 2012.
🚶 on foot
2
🌳 Field of Mars
A huge field-square with lawns and lilacs, with a granite memorial to the Victims of the Revolution in the centre.
A short walk along flat granite paths to the Mikhailovsky Garden; in wind, raise the stroller hood — the field is open.
📖 More about the placeCollapse
© Godot13 · CC BY-SA 4.0
© Комова Анастасия · CC BY-SA 4.0
© Florstein · CC BY-SA 4.0
- The square covers about 9 hectares — the second largest in the city after Moskovskaya Square.
- Under Peter I parades were held here and “amusement fireworks” were set off; the meadow was called the Great one, under Elizabeth the Tsaritsyn, and the Field of Mars from 1805.
- The monument to the Fighters of the Revolution, designed by Lev Rudnev, was unveiled on 7 November 1919; the inscriptions on the slabs were written by Lunacharsky.
- On 6 November 1957 the USSR's first eternal flame was lit here — the torch was brought from an open-hearth furnace of the Kirov Plant.
- In 1967 the flame at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Moscow was lit from the fire on the Field of Mars.
- In the summer of 1942, during the siege, the whole field was given over to vegetable gardens.
🚶 on foot
3
🌳 Mikhailovsky Garden
🚪 entrance from the Griboedov Canal Embankment
🆓 free entry
A landscape garden behind the Russian Museum with a pond, lawns and Parland's ornate fence on the Savior on Blood side.
The playground is in the west part of the garden, closer to the Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood; benches for mom nearby. The garden closes earlier than the Summer Garden — check the hours on the Russian Museum's website.
📖 More about the placeCollapse
© Vyacheslav Bukharov · CC BY-SA 4.0
© Александровы АГ · CC BY-SA 4.0
© GAlexandrova · CC BY-SA 4.0
- In the early 18th century the garden was called the Third Summer Garden — to distinguish it from Peter I's other two gardens.
- From 1712 a residence for Catherine I was built here, and in the greenhouses the gardener grew bananas and pineapples.
- Under Anna Ioannovna part of the garden was set aside as a "jagd-garten" — a place to hunt deer, boar and hares.
- Parland's fence was put up in 1907, when part of the garden went to the Savior on Blood and the new canal embankment.
- In 2001 a full reconstruction of the garden began, after which the summer festival "Imperial Gardens of Russia" started to be held here.
🚶 on foot
4
🍽 Goose Goose Restaurant · 🧸 play area
Б. Конюшенная ул., 27
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Leave the garden toward the Savior on Spilled Blood — and it is five minutes across Konyushennaya Square. Ask for a table near the kids' room and a high chair; staff will keep the stroller by the cloakroom.
🍴 An Italy Group restaurant by Konyushennaya Square with its own children's room and children's menu — a handy stop two steps from the Mikhailovsky Garden. What to order: for a toddler, a soup from the children's menu; for adults, pasta or risotto from the Italian menu.