Znayu mestoI know a place
RUENESTR中文عربيفارسی
Русский English Español Türkçe 中文 العربية فارسی

Walking routes in Saint Petersburg

    🚶 Routes 📍 Places
    Where do you start
    Start typing an address, metro station or place in the search box above — or tap the map where you will start
    How much walking
    Interests
    Child's age pick one or more
    Food we'll pick places along the way
      ← All routes

      Nevsky from the Admiralty to the Lavra

      ⏱ 10 h🚶 8 km + 🚕🍽 4📍 12 stops
      🏃 A lot — over 7 km

      All of Nevsky on foot: palaces, the library, Klodt’s horses, Staro-Nevsky and the Lavra.

      🌙 Evening🏛 History and architecture
      🗺 Open in Yandex Maps (with transit)
      1. 1
        ☕️ Civil
        Волынский пер., 6 / Большая Конюшенная ул., 19
        ▮▮▯▯▯
        Breakfast
        🍴 A coffee shop with strong coffee (filter, funnel) and all-day breakfasts a couple of steps from Nevsky. What to order: brioche with bacon, poached egg and dor blu sauce, syrniki with cherry and whipped condensed milk, pancakes with bacon.
      2. 🚶 on foot
      3. 2
        🌳 Alexander Garden
        A garden along the Admiralty with paths, busts of cultural figures and a big fountain in the middle.
        Start at the Admiralty
        📖 More about the placeCollapse
        Alexander Garden
        © Florstein · CC BY-SA 4.0
        Alexander Garden
        © Bernd Fiedler · CC BY-SA 4.0
        • The garden opened in 1874 and was named after Alexander II; it covers 9 hectares.
        • At the opening Alexander II planted a young oak himself opposite the portal of St Isaac's Cathedral — the oak still stands inside the fence.
        • In Soviet times it was the Workers' Garden (named after Gorky from 1936); the historic name was restored in 1997.
        • A bronze camel lies by the 1892 bust of Przhevalsky; because the explorer looked like Stalin, tourists asked: “Why is Stalin with a camel?”
        • The height of the central fountain's jet changes with the music, which is why it is called ‘dancing’.
        • The busts of Gogol and Lermontov by the fountain were put up in 1896, and Glinka's in 1899.
      4. 🚶 on foot
      5. 3
        🖼 Stroganov Palace
        Невский пр., 17
        🎟 ticket · a branch of the Russian Museum
        A pink Baroque palace at the corner of Nevsky and the Moika with restored state rooms.
        Stroganov Palace
        📖 More about the placeCollapse
        Stroganov Palace
        © Александровы АГ · CC BY-SA 4.0
        • The palace was built by Rastrelli in 1753–1754 for Baron Sergey Stroganov; the architect lived in the earlier house on the site.
        • Under Rastrelli the palace had fifty state rooms; of his interiors the Great Hall and the ceremonial vestibule survive.
        • The ceiling painting of the Great Hall was done by Giuseppe Valeriani in 1753; the hall was later tactfully reworked by Voronikhin.
        • Voronikhin created a domed Mineral Cabinet in the palace; it was recreated in 2003.
        • The Stroganov collection included Boltraffio's "Portrait of a Youth as St Sebastian", then believed to be by Leonardo.
        • The palace was nationalised in 1918 and handed to the Russian Museum in 1988.
      6. 🚶 on foot
      7. 4
        🏛 Kazan Cathedral
        Казанская пл., 2
        Voronikhin's huge cathedral of grey Pudost stone, with a semicircle of 96 columns on Nevsky Prospekt.
        Kazan Cathedral
        📖 More about the placeCollapse
        Kazan Cathedral
        © Flamel123 · CC BY-SA 4.0
        • The architect Andrey Voronikhin was a former serf of Count Stroganov, who freed him and sent him to study in Paris and Geneva.
        • In 1813 Field Marshal Mikhail Kutuzov was buried in the cathedral's left side chapel.
        • After 1812 trophies were brought to the cathedral: French banners, keys of captured cities and Marshal Davout's baton.
        • In 1834–1836 the iconostasis was clad in silver that Platov's Cossacks had taken from the French; it was melted down in 1922.
        • The monuments to Kutuzov and Barclay de Tolly by Boris Orlovsky were unveiled in 1837, on the 25th anniversary of the victory over Napoleon.
        • From 1932 it housed the Museum of the History of Religion and Atheism, and the first service after the break was held on 4 November 1990.
        • In 1893 the funeral service for Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky was held in the cathedral.
      8. 🚶 on foot
      9. 5
        🏛 Gostiny Dvor
        Невский пр., 35
        A huge 18th-century shopping complex with yellow arcade galleries along Nevsky.
        Gostiny Dvor
        📖 More about the placeCollapse
        Gostiny Dvor
        © Tatiusa · CC BY-SA 4.0
        • Gostiny Dvor was conceived as the largest trading building in the Russian Empire; Rastrelli's design was approved in 1757.
        • It was built by Vallin de la Mothe, who kept Rastrelli's layout but dressed the building in early Neoclassical forms.
        • In the 1840s Gostiny Dvor was one of the first buildings in the city to get gas lighting.
        • People came not only to shop: they arranged dates and "accidental" matchmaking meetings here, and Krylov loved to stroll through.
        • In 1966 the department store was visited by around 300,000 shoppers a day.
        • Since 3 November 1967 the vestibule of Gostiny Dvor metro station has been built into the building.
      10. 🚶 on foot
      11. 6
        🍽 Palkin restaurant
        Невский пр., 47
        ▮▮▮▮▮
        Lunch
        🍴 A restaurant on the site of the famous Palkin tavern (founded in 1785): pre-revolutionary Russian cuisine with theatrical presentation and a historic interior. What to order: sterlet in white wine, day-old shchi, Olivier salad, the “Anna Pavlova” cake.
      12. 🚶 on foot
      13. 7
        🏛 Anichkov Bridge (Klodt's horses)
        A bridge over the Fontanka on Nevsky with four bronze sculptures of a man taming a horse at its corners.
        Klodt’s horses
        📖 More about the placeCollapse
        Anichkov Bridge (Klodt's horses)
        © Ninara from Helsinki, Finland · CC BY 2.0
        • The bridge is named after the settlement of Lieutenant Colonel Mikhail Anichkov's battalion — he also built the first, wooden bridge here in 1716.
        • The current bridge was built in record time in 1841: the first stone was laid on 22 May and traffic opened on 20 November.
        • The cast-iron railing copies that of Schinkel's Palace Bridge in Berlin — Nicholas I liked its pattern.
        • Nicholas I gave the first pair of Klodt's bronze horses to the King of the Two Sicilies, and in 1846 they were sent to Naples.
        • While plaster copies stood on the bridge, Petersburgers joked that the horses would never come back; the bridge was fully completed in 1851.
        • In October 1941 the sculptures were taken down and buried in the garden of the Anichkov Palace to save them from the bombing.
        • The pedestal of the north-west group kept the marks of a shell, with a plaque about the 148,478 shells fired at Leningrad.
      14. 🚶 on foot
      15. 8
        🚶 Staro-Nevsky Prospekt
        The stretch of Nevsky from Ploshchad Vosstaniya to the Lavra: apartment buildings, coffee shops and fewer tourists.
        Staro-Nevsky
        📖 More about the placeCollapse
        • The name comes from a 1753 plan to route this part of the avenue along today's Goncharnaya Street — the old route was then nicknamed the “Old Nevsky Perspective”.
        • The bend of Nevsky at Ploshchad Vosstaniya is a trace of the fact that the clearings from the Admiralty and from the Lavra were cut independently of each other.
        • At No. 92 in 1898–1913 stood the Znanie publishing house, which Maxim Gorky effectively ran from 1900.
        • The lawyer Anatoly Koni lived in 1895–1907 in Lopatin's neo-Romanesque apartment building (No. 100).
      16. 🚶 on foot
      17. 9
        🏛 Alexander Nevsky Lavra
        наб. Монастырки, 1
        🚪 entrance through the Holy Gates
        🎟 partly ticketed · The grounds are free; the necropolises are ticketed
        A monastery with the Trinity Cathedral, 18th-century necropolises and the graves of Lomonosov, Tchaikovsky and Dostoevsky.
        Alexander Nevsky Lavra
        📖 More about the placeCollapse
        Alexander Nevsky Lavra
        © Никонико962 · CC BY-SA 4.0
        Alexander Nevsky Lavra
        © МАРИНА ПЕЙСАХОВИЧ · CC BY-SA 4.0
        Alexander Nevsky Lavra
        © Reshinna · CC BY-SA 4.0
        • In July 1710 Peter I ordered a monastery built here: this was believed to be the place where Alexander Nevsky defeated the Swedes in 1240.
        • The official founding date is 25 March 1713, the day the first wooden Annunciation Church was consecrated.
        • By Peter's decree, Alexander Nevsky's relics were brought from Vladimir in 1724.
        • The monastery received the status of a lavra in 1797 by decree of Paul I.
        • The present Trinity Cathedral, in the early Neoclassical style, was built to a design by Ivan Starov and consecrated in 1790.
        • In 1922 Alexander Nevsky's silver shrine was confiscated and given to the Hermitage; the relics returned to the cathedral in 1989.
        • The Lazarus and Tikhvin cemeteries of the lavra are part of the Museum of Urban Sculpture, founded in 1932.
      18. 🚶 on foot
      19. 10
        🏛 Necropolis of Masters of the Arts
        Тихвинское кладбище лавры
        🎟 ticket
        Tchaikovsky, Dostoevsky, Mussorgsky
        The necropolis
        📖 More about the placeCollapse
        Necropolis of Masters of the Arts
        © Павел Котов · CC BY 3.0
        Necropolis of Masters of the Arts
        © Glvinn · CC BY-SA 3.0
        • The cemetery was laid out in 1823 as the New Lazarus Cemetery, and was named Tikhvin in 1876.
        • In 1935–1937 about 60 gravestones were brought here from other cemeteries of the city — this is how the “Necropolis of Masters of the Arts” appeared.
        • The Church-Tomb of the Tikhvin Icon was built in 1869–1871 with money from the Polezhayev merchants; in 1931 a post office was set up in it.
        • After 1966 the cemetery was considered closed; the exceptions were the ashes of Glazunov, brought from France in 1972, and Tovstonogov in 1989.
      20. 🚕 taxi ≈10 min
      21. 11
        🍽 Dobry Gruzin
        Ярославская ул., 4
        ▮▮▮▯▯
        Dinner
        🍴 A Georgian restaurant with live music in the evenings, a couple of blocks from Smolny Cathedral and the Smolny. What to order: khinkali (Georgian dumplings) with lamb, lyulya kebab, khachapuri, salad with crispy aubergines.
      22. 🚕 taxi ≈10 min
      23. 12
        🍸 Orthodox
        ул. Восстания, 4
        ▮▮▮▯▯
        A bar to finish
        🍴 A Russian cocktail bar built on vodka, polugar and tinctures: sections of the menu are dedicated to Chekhov, Blok, Dostoevsky and Tchaikovsky. What to order: the "Brothers Karamazov" shot set, the "Cherry Orchard" cocktail, "The Nutcracker".

      Find us on Telegram

      Partnerships and ideas

      ✉️ privet@znayumesto.ru

      Settings

      Data: © OpenStreetMap · DB-IP · weather — Open-Meteo
      The map did not load. You can still browse routes in the list and open them in Yandex Maps.

      We use cookies and Yandex Metrica to understand which routes are useful. Without your consent we keep only our own cookie-free statistics.