The Winter Canal, Palace Square and Dinner at Gogol

⏱ 50 min🚶 1.3 km🍽 1📍 4 stops

🐢 A little — under 3 km

The lights of the Peter and Paul Fortress across the Neva, the lit-up arch over the Winter Canal, an almost empty evening Palace Square and dinner at a restaurant in a 19th-century apartment.

🌙 Evening🏛 History and architecture⏱ An hour or so

🗺 Open in Yandex Maps

1
🚶 Palace Embankment
A granite embankment along the Neva from the Summer Garden to the Hermitage, with views of the Peter and Paul Fortress and the Spit.
Walk on the river side: when it gets dark, the walls and spire of the fortress light up opposite, and behind you are the lamps of Trinity Bridge.
📖 More about the placeCollapse
© Vyacheslav Bukharov · CC BY-SA 4.0
- The embankment is 1.3 km long; it is named after the Winter and Marble palaces.
- From 1923 to 1944 it was called Ninth of January Embankment, in memory of the shooting of the 1905 demonstration.
- The wooden bank was faced with granite by a decree of 1762; the work under Yury Felten went on until 1780.
- The fabulist Ivan Krylov lived at No. 2, Betskoy's house.
- Prime Minister Sergey Witte, the painter Konstantin Makovsky and the historian Yevgeny Tarle lived at No. 30.
- In 1832 the 600-tonne monolith of the Alexander Column was unloaded at this embankment, brought on the special boat ‘St Nicholas’.
🚶 on foot
2
🌅 Winter Canal
A short canal between the Moika and the Neva with an arched passage between Hermitage buildings over the water.
Climb onto the little bridge over the canal: the arch between the Hermitage and the theater, lit up, is the most theatrical view of the evening.
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© Александр Байдуков · CC BY-SA 4.0
© Никонико962 · CC BY-SA 4.0
- The canal was dug in 1718–1719 under the contractor Vasily Ozerov.
- The Winter Canal is only 228 m long and about 20 m wide; it is one of the shortest canals in the city.
- The embankments were clad in granite in 1782–1784, and the railings were made to a design by Ivan Dunker.
- According to legend, Catherine II held a feast in the gallery above the arch to prove it was sturdy; historians consider this an anecdote.
- In Tchaikovsky's opera The Queen of Spades, Liza throws herself into the Winter Canal.
🚶 on foot
3
🏛 Palace Square
The city's main square between the Winter Palace and the arc of the General Staff Building with the Triumphal Arch.
Come out onto the square along Millionnaya past the Atlantes: the Winter Palace, the column and the General Staff arch are lit, and after 21:00 it's almost empty.
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© 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.
🚶 on foot
4
🍽 Gogol
Малая Морская ул., 8
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Dinner five minutes from the square. The kitchen is open until 22:30; on weekend evenings it's best to book.
🍴 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.