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Walking routes in Saint Petersburg

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      A big walking day along the Neva

      ⏱ 11 h🚶 14 km🍽 3📍 13 stops
      🏃 A lot — over 7 km

      For those who love to walk: from Smolny through the fortress and the Strelka to the Gulf of Finland.

      🏛 History and architecture🌳 Parks and nature
      🗺 Open in Yandex Maps
      1. 1
        🧺 Maltsevsky Market
        ул. Некрасова, 52
        ▮▮▯▯▯
        Breakfast at the market
        🍴 A covered market from 1914 in the city centre: dairy and meat stalls, fish, cheeses, pickles, herbs. What to order: cottage cheese and sour cream from the farmers, smoked fish and caviar at Rybny Kult, vegan pizza at Stay Gold Pizza Spot on the ground floor.
      2. 🚶 on foot
      3. 2
        🌳 Tauride Garden
        🚪 entrance from Kirochnaya Street
        A large landscape garden by the Tauride Palace with canals, hills and playgrounds.
        The Tauride Garden
        🚪 exit to Tavricheskaya Street
        📖 More about the placeCollapse
        Tauride Garden
        © Anzhi86 · CC0
        Tauride Garden
        © Liabilityme · CC BY-SA 4.0
        Tauride Garden
        © Godot13 · CC BY-SA 4.0
        • The garden was laid out in 1783–1800 by the English gardener William Gould at Prince Potemkin's Tauride Palace.
        • The ponds were filled with water from the Ligovsky Canal and stocked with sterlet, and the soil dug out was piled into hills.
        • The garden opened to the public only in 1866.
        • From 1958 it was the City Children's Park; the historic name was restored in 1975.
        • In Chukovsky's “Moydodyr”, it is in the Tauride Garden that the washcloth chases the hero and he meets the Crocodile.
        • The garden has monuments to Tchaikovsky (1990) and Yesenin (1995).
      4. 🚶 on foot
      5. 3
        🌅 Smolny Cathedral (bell tower)
        пл. Растрелли, 1
        🎟 partly ticketed · The climb to the bell tower is ticketed
        A viewing platform on the bell tower — 277 steps
        A view from the bell tower
        📖 More about the placeCollapse
        Smolny Cathedral (bell tower)
        © Никонико962 · CC BY-SA 4.0
        Smolny Cathedral (bell tower)
        © A.Savin · CC BY-SA 3.0
        • The cathedral was founded on 30 October 1748: Elizabeth Petrovna wanted to end her days in a convent on the site of the palace of her childhood.
        • Because of the Seven Years' War money ran out, and under Elizabeth Rastrelli's cathedral was left unfinished as a bare shell.
        • The cathedral was completed by Vasily Stasov and consecrated on 20 July 1835.
        • Rastrelli built the cathedral ‘cold’, and Stasov had to struggle to cut flues for stoves in the walls.
        • The cathedral is 93.7 metres high.
        • The giant bell tower Rastrelli had planned was raised only a few metres and then dismantled.
        • From 1990 to 2015 the cathedral served as a classical music concert hall.
      6. 🚶 on foot
      7. 4
        🚶 Kutuzov Embankment
        A quiet granite embankment with mansions and a view across the Neva to the Peter and Paul Fortress and the Aurora.
        Along the Neva
        📖 More about the placeCollapse
        Kutuzov Embankment
        © Вячеслав Протасов · CC BY-SA 4.0
        • From 1902 the embankment was called the French one, because the French embassy was here; in 1918 it was renamed Jaurès Embankment.
        • It got Kutuzov's name in September 1945, after the field marshal's house at No. 30.
        • Mstislav Rostropovich and Galina Vishnevskaya lived at No. 16 from 1994 to 2007.
        • No. 10 housed the French embassy in 1892–1917, and in the 1950s Academician Ioffe's Institute of Semiconductors.
      8. 🚶 on foot
      9. 5
        🌳 Summer Garden
        🚪 entrance from Palace Embankment
        🎟 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.
        The Summer Garden
        📖 More about the placeCollapse
        Summer Garden
        © ElenaLitera · CC BY-SA 4.0
        Summer Garden
        © Florstein · CC BY-SA 4.0
        Summer Garden
        © 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.
      10. 🚶 on foot
      11. 6
        🌅 Trinity Bridge
        A drawbridge about 580 metres long with openwork lamps and views of the Peter and Paul Fortress.
        Across the Neva
        📖 More about the placeCollapse
        Trinity Bridge
        © Александровы АГ · CC BY-SA 4.0
        Trinity Bridge
        © GAlexandrova · CC BY-SA 4.0
        • The bridge was laid on 12 August 1897 under Nicholas II and French President Félix Faure, in response to the laying of the Pont Alexandre III in Paris.
        • Gustave Eiffel's firm won the competition, but construction went to the French company Batignolles.
        • Until 1965, when the Alexander Nevsky Bridge opened, the Trinity Bridge, at 582 m, was the longest in the city.
        • The bridge is dedicated to the 25th wedding anniversary of Alexander III and Maria Feodorovna — the plaques on the obelisks say so.
        • In 1918–1934 it was called the Equality Bridge, and in 1934–1991 the Kirov Bridge.
        • The Pulkovo meridian crosses the northern part of the bridge.
        • Since 2005 the raised span of the Trinity Bridge has been one of the symbols of the Scarlet Sails graduates' festival.
      12. 🚶 on foot
      13. 7
        🏛 Peter and Paul Fortress
        🎟 partly ticketed · The grounds are free; the cathedral and museums are ticketed
        The noon cannon shot — at 12:00
        The fortress
        📖 More about the placeCollapse
        Peter and Paul Fortress
        © Andrey Korzun · CC BY-SA 4.0
        Peter and Paul Fortress
        © Godot13 · CC BY-SA 4.0
        • The fortress was founded on 16 (27) May 1703 — this day is considered the founding day of Petersburg.
        • The fortress never took part in military action.
        • From 1706 the earthen ramparts began to be replaced with brick ones; the bastions are named after Peter's associates — Menshikov, Naryshkin, Trubetskoy.
        • The Peter and Paul Cathedral was built in 1712–1733 to a design by Trezzini; the bell tower is 122.5 m high, and inside is the Romanov burial vault.
        • The Peter Gate is dedicated to the victories over Sweden; Trezzini designed its Baroque facade in 1708.
        • Until the early 1920s the Trubetskoy Bastion held a prison for political prisoners; Maxim Gorky was held there in 1905.
        • In 1991 a monument to Peter I by Mikhail Shemyakin was placed on the central alley.
      14. 🚶 on foot
      15. 8
        🍽 Petrovskoye café in the Peter and Paul Fortress
        Петропавловская крепость, 3Т
        ▮▮▯▯▯
        Lunch
        🍴 An inexpensive canteen-style café right inside the Peter and Paul Fortress: soups, pastries, lunches. What to order: borscht, pasta, pirozhki, tea in a pot.
      16. 🚶 on foot
      17. 9
        🌅 Strelka of Vasilyevsky Island (the Spit)
        The Rostral Columns and a view of the Neva
        The Strelka
        📖 More about the placeCollapse
        Strelka of Vasilyevsky Island (the Spit)
        © A.Savin · FAL 1.3
        Strelka of Vasilyevsky Island (the Spit)
        © Kora27 · CC BY-SA 3.0
        • Until 1885 Petersburg's seaport worked on the Spit, then it was moved to Gutuevsky Island.
        • The 32-metre Rostral Columns were put up by Thomas de Thomon in 1805–1810; until 1885 they served as lighthouses.
        • The columns' name comes from the Latin rostrum, “ship's prow”: they are decorated with metal ship prows and anchors.
        • The version that the figures at the base of the columns are the Volkhov, Neva, Dnieper and Volga is recent and not confirmed by documents.
        • The Exchange building, shaped like an ancient temple, opened in 1816; since 2013 it has been handed over to the Hermitage.
        • From 1937 to 1989 the square on the Spit was called Pushkin Square.
      18. 🚶 on foot
      19. 10
        🏛 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.
        The sphinxes
        📖 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.
      20. 🚶 on foot
      21. 11
        🖼 Icebreaker Krasin
        наб. Лейтенанта Шмидта, у 23-й линии
        🎟 ticket
        You can go down into the engine room
        The icebreaker
        📖 More about the placeCollapse
        Icebreaker Krasin
        © Александровы АГ · CC BY-SA 4.0
        Icebreaker Krasin
        © Александровы АГ · CC BY-SA 4.0
        • The icebreaker was built in 1916–1917 in Newcastle, England, at the Armstrong Whitworth yard, under the name ‘Svyatogor’.
        • The design was an improved version of Makarov's ‘Yermak’, with engines of 10,000 horsepower.
        • The engineer and future writer Yevgeny Zamyatin took part in assembling the ship in England.
        • In 1918 the icebreaker was sunk in the Northern Dvina to block the interventionists, but in 1920 they took it away to Britain.
        • In 1927 the icebreaker was named after Leonid Krasin, the diplomat who secured the ship's purchase back from England.
        • In the war the Krasin passed through the Panama Canal and went to the Arctic as part of the northern convoy PQ-15.
        • In the film “The Red Tent” (1969) the Krasin was played by another icebreaker, the ‘Sibiryakov’.
      22. 🚶 on foot
      23. 12
        🌅 Embankment by the Sea Passenger Terminal
        пл. Морской Славы, 1
        The open Gulf of Finland
        The Gulf of Finland
        📖 More about the placeCollapse
        Embankment by the Sea Passenger Terminal
        © Алексей Решетников · CC BY 3.0
        Embankment by the Sea Passenger Terminal
        © Dulamas · CC BY-SA 4.0
        • The Soviet Modernist building was built in 1973–1983 to a design by Vitaly Sokhin and his colleagues.
        • The walls are clad with panels shaped like sails, and the 78-metre spire carries a little ship.
        • Sokhin travelled round the ports of Europe and concluded that “nowhere in the world are sea terminals built” — the building type had to be invented.
        • The sails were criticised as expensive decoration, but the authors defended them, making them light, with an aluminium coating.
      24. 🚶 on foot
      25. 13
        🍜 Food court and restaurants at Sevkabel Port
        Кожевенная линия, 40
        ▮▮▯▯▯
        Dinner at sunset
        🍴 A public space on the gulf in a former cable factory: ten or so cafés and restaurants by the water. What to order: Roman pizza at Pio al Porto, ramen and gyoza at Takadaya, pljeskavica at Balkan, a burger at Buro.

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