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Walking routes in Saint Petersburg

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      A lit-up castle, the Public Library and the Gostiny arcades

      ⏱ 1 h 25 min🚶 2.8 km🍽 0📍 5 stops
      🐢 A little — under 3 km

      Evening Sadovaya: the spire of Mikhailovsky Castle lit up, statues of thinkers on the Public Library facade, the Gostiny Dvor arcade ablaze with lights and lively, noisy Sennaya.

      🌙 Evening🏛 History and architecture⏱ An hour or so
      🗺 Open in Yandex Maps
      1. 1
        🏛 Chizhik-Pyzhik
        наб. Фонтанки, у Первого Инженерного моста
        A tiny bronze bird on a ledge above the Fontanka: land a coin on the pedestal for good luck.
        Start around 17:30 at the First Engineers' Bridge: you can still see the little bird, and the lamps are starting to come on above the Fontanka.
        📖 More about the placeCollapse
        • The Chizhik was installed on 19 November 1994; the idea was proposed by the writer Andrei Bitov and realised by Rezo Gabriadze with the architect Vyacheslav Bukhaev.
        • The bird is 11 cm tall and weighs about 5 kg.
        • Until 2014 the Chizhik was stolen seven times, but each time it was returned or cast anew.
        • Legend says the song about the Chizhik is about students of the neighbouring School of Jurisprudence in their green-and-yellow uniforms, but a parody of it was already known in 1825, before the school opened.
      2. 🚶 on foot
      3. 2
        🖼 Mikhailovsky Castle
        Садовая ул., 2
        🎟 ticket
        Paul I's fortress castle surrounded by rivers and canals, with the high golden spire of its house church.
        The museum is already closed — walk around the castle along Sadovaya: as it gets dark, the facade and the golden spire are lit.
        📖 More about the placeCollapse
        Mikhailovsky Castle
        © Florstein · CC BY-SA 4.0
        Mikhailovsky Castle
        © Florstein · CC BY-SA 4.0
        • The castle was built in 1797–1801: the project was begun by Vasily Bazhenov and completed by Vincenzo Brenna.
        • Paul I lived in the castle for about 40 days: he moved in on 1 (13) February 1801 and was killed here on the night of 12 March.
        • The castle stands on the site of Elizabeth Petrovna's wooden Summer Palace, where Paul himself was born in 1754.
        • The copper letters over the gate — “Holiness becometh thine house, O Lord, for ever” — were first made for the Smolny Cathedral, then for St Isaac's.
        • According to legend, the colour of the walls was chosen after the glove of Paul's favourite Anna Lopukhina; restorers found a pinkish-orange paint under the plaster.
        • The castle got its second name, “Engineers' Castle”, from the Main Engineering School that took it over in 1819.
        • In front of the castle stands the monument to Peter I after a model by B. K. Rastrelli, with the inscription “To the great-grandfather from the great-grandson” — Paul put it up in 1800.
        • Since 1994 the whole building has belonged to the Russian Museum.
      4. 🚶 on foot
      5. 3
        🏛 National Library of Russia (historic building)
        Санкт-Петербург, Садовая ул., 18
        Russia's first public library (1814): statues of ancient thinkers on the façade, and inside Voltaire's Library and the Faust Cabinet.
        The Public Library facade on the corner of Nevsky with statues of ancient thinkers in evening lighting.
        📖 More about the placeCollapse
        National Library of Russia (historic building)
        © A.Savin · FAL 1.3
        • Yegor Sokolov's design for the building was approved by Catherine II in 1795; it took about 15 years to build.
        • The core of the foreign collection was the library of the Załuski brothers.
        • In its first year 329 readers registered at the library.
        • Ivan Krylov, Nikolai Gnedich, Konstantin Batyushkov and Anton Delvig worked at the library.
        • The wing facing the Catherine Garden was built by Carlo Rossi in 1832–1835.
        • Before the revolution the staff included a dachshund keeper: at night the dachshunds caught rats, and now the library is home to a "cat headquarters".
      6. 🚶 on foot
      7. 4
        🏛 Gostiny Dvor
        Невский пр., 35
        A huge 18th-century shopping complex with yellow arcade galleries along Nevsky.
        Walk along the Sadovaya side of Gostiny Dvor — a long arcade in lights, with Apraksin Dvor across the street.
        📖 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.
      8. 🚶 on foot
      9. 5
        🏛 Sennaya Square
        A former market square with a metro station and shopping arcades — the heart of the “Dostoevsky” neighbourhoods.
        In the evening the square is noisy and lively; this is where the “Dostoevsky” blocks begin — 5 minutes to Raskolnikov's house.
        📖 More about the placeCollapse
        Sennaya Square
        © Monoklon · CC BY-SA 4.0
        • The square appeared in 1738–1739 on a wasteland with hay warehouses; in 1952–1992 it was called Peace Square.
        • In June 1831 the cholera riot broke out on Sennaya: a crowd wrecked the cholera hospital.
        • Until the mid-19th century thieves and swindlers were publicly punished here — Nekrasov described these “market executions”.
        • The guardhouse building of 1818–1820 was built by Vikenty Beretti to a design by Luigi Rusca.
        • The Church of the Saviour on Sennaya was demolished in 1961, and a metro vestibule was built in its place.
        • Today three metro lines intersect under the square.

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