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Walking routes in Saint Petersburg

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      Vasilyevsky Island gardens for toddlers

      ⏱ 3 h🚶 1.6 km🍽 1📍 5 stops
      🐢 A little — under 3 km

      The sphinxes, the quiet Academic Garden, the Rumyantsev Garden playground and lunch with a kids' room on pedestrian 6th Line.

      👶 With kids🎨 Art🌳 Parks and nature
      👶 under 3, 3–6 years · ✓ stroller-friendly

      Vasileostrovskaya has no lift — from the center it is easier to take bus 7 or 10 to Universitetskaya Embankment, or a taxi. At the sphinxes steps lead down to the water — look from above.

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      1. 1
        🏛 Sphinxes by the Academy of Arts
        Университетская наб., 17
        A pair of granite Egyptian sphinxes on the steps down to the Neva by the Academy of Arts.
        Easier to get here by bus. Look at the sphinxes and the Neva from the upper platform; it is not worth going down the steps to the water with a stroller.
        📖 More about the placeCollapse
        Sphinxes by the Academy of Arts
        © Alex Fedorov (Florstein) · CC BY-SA 4.0
        Sphinxes by the Academy of Arts
        © GAlexandrova · CC BY-SA 4.0
        • The sphinxes were made under the pharaoh Amenhotep III for his mortuary temple in Thebes; in 1825 they were found by the antiquities hunter Giovanni d'Athanasi.
        • Each sphinx, of pink Aswan granite, weighs 23 tonnes and is 5.24 m long.
        • Buying them was proposed by the traveller Andrey Muravyov, who had seen a sphinx in Alexandria in 1830.
        • The sphinxes had already been sold to France, but the July Revolution wrecked the deal — and Russia bought them for 64,000 rubles.
        • While being loaded onto the ship ‘Buena Esperanza’, one sphinx fell and damaged the headcloth.
        • The sphinxes arrived in May 1832, but for two years stood in the courtyard of the Academy of Arts while Konstantin Thon finished the landing stage.
      2. 🚶 on foot
      3. 2
        🌳 Academic Garden (Academy of Arts Garden)
        Университетская наб., 17 (сад за главным зданием Академии, между 3-й и 4-й линиями)
        An intimate 18th-century garden behind the Academy of Arts: flat paths, benches, students with easels and almost no traffic noise.
        Almost no people here and there is a small playground in the south part — a good place for the baby to sleep while you sit on a bench among students' easels.
        📖 More about the placeCollapse
        Academic Garden (Academy of Arts Garden)
        © Daria Funtova · CC BY-SA 3.0
        • The garden's layout and its fence were designed in 1844 by the architect A. P. Bryullov.
        • In the centre of the garden stands a pink granite column — a spare shaft prepared for the colonnade of Kazan Cathedral.
        • The column was set up in 1807, on Count Stroganov's suggestion, in the inner courtyard for the Academy's 50th anniversary, and moved to the garden in 1847.
        • The column's capital is bronze and topped with a lyre.
        • The first building in the garden was the Academy's "foundry house", designed by A. D. Zakharov, 1805.
      4. 🚶 on foot
      5. 3
        🌳 Rumyantsev Garden
        A small square on the University Embankment with the “To Rumyantsev's Victories” obelisk in the centre.
        The playground is in the north part of the garden, closer to Kadetskaya Line, away from the cars on the embankment. On weekdays from 10 to 12 it is quiet, with moms and toddlers.
        📖 More about the placeCollapse
        Rumyantsev Garden
        © GAlexandrova · CC BY-SA 4.0
        • The “To Rumyantsev's Victories” obelisk, designed by Vincenzo Brenna, was put up in 1799 on the Field of Mars and moved here in 1818.
        • The garden was laid out in 1865–1866 with money from house owners, above all the city councillor S. F. Solovyov; the fence was cast at the San Galli works.
        • From 1939 to 2001 the square was called Shevchenko Square — the poet lived and worked in the neighbouring Academy of Arts.
        • In the early 18th century the bustling Menshikov market stood here, and later the Cadet Corps' parade ground.
        • The garden's two cast-iron fountains were made in France.
      6. 🚶 on foot
      7. 4
        🏛 St Andrew's Cathedral
        6-я линия В.О., 11
        A pink-and-white 18th-century cathedral with a Baroque bell tower on the 6th Line.
        Along 6th Line — pedestrian and flat — to St Andrew's Cathedral: pigeons and room for first steps.
        📖 More about the placeCollapse
        St Andrew's Cathedral
        © Екатерина Борисова · CC BY-SA 4.0
        St Andrew's Cathedral
        © A.Savin · FAL 1.3
        • The stone cathedral was founded in 1764 and consecrated in 1780; its design is attributed to the architect A. F. Vist.
        • The cathedral was the chapter church of the Order of St Andrew the First-Called.
        • Inside survives a carved, gilded three-tier 18th-century iconostasis, 17 m high.
        • The neighbouring Andreevsky Market is named after the cathedral.
        • Back in 1724 Peter commissioned the Swede Tessin to design a St Andrew's church on the Spit “like St Paul's Cathedral in London”, but did not live to see it built.
        • The clock on the bell tower, made in Kronstadt, was installed in 1894.
      8. 🚶 on foot
      9. 5
        🧺 Vasileostrovsky Market
        Большой пр. В.О., 16/14б
        ▮▮▯▯▯
        A snack at the Vasileostrovsky (Andreevsky) Market: food court and stalls
        🍴 A gourmet market from the 1930s which, after the 2019 renovation, is a food hall with 30+ stalls and grocery rows with their own cheese dairy. What to order: Roman pizza at Piopizza, pho at Bổ, khinkali (Georgian dumplings) at Georgiani, oysters at Fisha.

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