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 above: the Duma Tower and cathedral lights

      ⏱ 4 h🚶 3.4 km🍽 1📍 6 stops
      🚶 Moderate — 3–7 km

      The evening center in lights: the Savior on Spilled Blood, the colonnade of Kazan Cathedral, the griffins of Bankovsky Bridge, and then a climb up the Duma Tower — all of Nevsky in lights.

      🌙 Evening🏛 History and architecture
      🗺 Open in Yandex Maps
      1. 1
        🏛 Church of the Savior on Blood
        наб. канала Грибоедова, 2Б
        🎟 ticket
        A colorful church in the Old Russian style with enamel and gilded domes on the spot where Alexander II was wounded.
        Start at dark, around 18:00: the domes are lit, and it is quieter around than by day. You can't go inside in the evening — we look from outside.
        📖 More about the placeCollapse
        Church of the Savior on Blood
        © Wolfgang Moroder · CC BY-SA 3.0
        Church of the Savior on Blood
        © Florstein · CC BY-SA 4.0
        • The church, 81 meters tall, took 24 years to build — from 1883 to 1907.
        • Alexander III rejected the designs of two competitions and approved the design by Alfred Parland and Archimandrite Ignaty (Malyshev).
        • The mosaics were made by Vladimir Frolov's workshop from sketches by more than 30 artists, among them Viktor Vasnetsov and Mikhail Nesterov.
        • During the siege the church was used as a morgue, and after the war as a scenery warehouse of the Maly Opera Theater.
        • In 1961 steeplejacks found a German high-explosive shell in the central dome, which had lain there for 18 years.
        • The museum opened on 19 August 1997 — exactly 90 years after the church was consecrated.
      2. 🚶 on foot
      3. 2
        🏛 Kazan Cathedral
        Казанская пл., 2
        Voronikhin's huge cathedral of grey Pudost stone, with a semicircle of 96 columns on Nevsky Prospekt.
        Along Griboedov Canal to Nevsky. The colonnade is lit; walk around it in a semicircle.
        📖 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.
      4. 🚶 on foot
      5. 3
        🏛 Bank Bridge (the griffins)
        A pedestrian bridge over the Griboyedov Canal whose chains are held in the mouths of four cast-iron griffins with golden wings.
        Five minutes down the canal: lamps burn above the griffins, and from the bridge you see the lit colonnade of Kazan Cathedral.
        📖 More about the placeCollapse
        Bank Bridge (the griffins)
        © Златогорский Владимир · CC BY-SA 3.0
        Bank Bridge (the griffins)
        © Boris Sakic · CC BY-SA 4.0
        • The bridge was built in 1825–1826 to a design by engineer Tretter and opened on 24 July 1826.
        • It is one of three surviving chain bridges from the 1820s, along with the Lion Bridge and the Pochtamtsky Bridge.
        • The “griffins” are actually winged lions: the 2.85-metre figures were cast in iron from models by Pavel Sokolov.
        • The lions' wings are hammered from sheet copper and covered in gold leaf.
        • The bridge got its name in 1836 from the Assignation Bank, whose building now houses the university of economics.
        • According to a local belief, stroking the griffins brings luck in studies and work.
        • The winged lion of the Bank Bridge is part of the logo of the Krupskaya confectionery factory.
        • In 2017 the first full restoration of the bridge's sculptures in 190 years began.
      6. 🚶 on foot
      7. 4
        🏛 City Duma Tower
        Невский пр., 33
        A tiered 19th-century tower with a clock and spire — one of the vertical accents of Nevsky Prospekt.
        The deck is open until 22:00, the last session is at 21:30; better to buy a session ticket online in advance. About 230 steps up; from the top, Nevsky, Kazan Cathedral, the Savior on Spilled Blood and St Isaac's in lights.
        📖 More about the placeCollapse
        City Duma Tower
        © Екатерина Борисова · CC BY-SA 4.0
        City Duma Tower
        © Никонико962 · CC BY-SA 4.0
        • The tower, about 47.5 m tall, was built in 1799–1804 on the orders of Paul I; construction was led by Giacomo Ferrari.
        • In 1839 the tower became a link in the optical telegraph line from Petersburg to Warsaw — 1,200 km long, the longest in the world.
        • A signal passed through 149 stations to Warsaw in about 15 minutes; in 1854 it was replaced by an electric telegraph.
        • From the 1850s to the 1920s the tower served as a fire watchtower, with ten firefighters permanently on duty inside.
        • On the night of 26 October 1917 the "Committee for the Salvation of the Motherland and the Revolution" met in the Duma's Alexander Hall.
      8. 🚶 on foot
      9. 5
        🍽 Gogol
        Малая Морская ул., 8
        ▮▮▮▯▯
        Along Nevsky to Malaya Morskaya — dinner in a 19th-century “apartment”, open until 23:00, better to book a table.
        🍴 A Russian-cuisine restaurant set in a 19th-century noble apartment, between St Isaac's Cathedral and Nevsky. What to order: borscht with salo and pampushki, chicken Kiev, pirozhki, olivier salad, homemade tinctures.
      10. 🚶 on foot
      11. 6
        🏛 Palace Square
        The city's main square between the Winter Palace and the arc of the General Staff Building with the Triumphal Arch.
        After dinner — 5 minutes to Palace Square: the column and the Winter Palace in lights. Admiralteyskaya is nearby.
        📖 More about the placeCollapse
        Palace Square
        © Mikhey77777 · CC BY-SA 4.0
        • From 1918 to 1944 the square was called Uritsky Square, after the head of the Petrograd Cheka, killed by the General Staff Building.
        • On 16 June 1766 Catherine II held a Carousel here — an equestrian festival-tournament with Rinaldi's wooden amphitheater seating several thousand.
        • The granite monolith of the Alexander Column is not fixed in any way and stays on its pedestal under its own weight alone.
        • In 1924 it was decided to replace the angel on the column with a figure of Lenin, but after a year of discussion the project was dropped.
        • The east side of the square is closed off by the Guards Corps headquarters, built by Alexander Bryullov in 1837–1843.
        • In 1932 the square's cobblestones were paved over with asphalt, and the diabase-cobble paving was restored only in 1977.
        • In autumn 1941 they seriously discussed making an airfield for fighters on the square by moving the column, but dropped the idea.

      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.