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Walking routes in Saint Petersburg

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      Smolny in lights and Malaya Okhta

      ⏱ 3 h 30 min🚶 3.5 km🍽 1📍 6 stops
      🚶 Moderate — 3–7 km

      From the lit Smolny Cathedral across the Bolsheokhtinsky Bridge to quiet Malaya Okhta, from where the cathedral and bridge are seen across the Neva. Dinner at a German restaurant by the metro.

      🌙 Evening🏛 History and architecture🏘 Off the centre
      🗺 Open in Yandex Maps
      1. 1
        🏛 Smolny Institute
        Смольный пр., 1
        Quarenghi's Neoclassicism: the former institute for noble maidens, the headquarters of the 1917 revolution, now the governor's administration; from the square you can see the propylaea and the garden with the Lenin monument, and the museum is by prior reservation.
        Start at dusk at the Propylaea; about 25 minutes on foot from Chernyshevskaya metro
        📖 More about the placeCollapse
        Smolny Institute
        © Kora27 · CC BY-SA 4.0
        • The Smolny Institute is Russia's first educational institution for women, conceived on the model of the Saint-Cyr institute near Paris.
        • Girls were admitted from the age of six for 12 years, and parents signed a pledge not to take their daughter home before the term was up.
        • The pupils' uniform changed colour with age: coffee-brown, dark blue, light blue, and white for the oldest.
        • Quarenghi built the building with its eight-column portico in 1806–1808.
        • On 1 December 1934 Sergei Kirov, head of the Leningrad Communists, was assassinated at Smolny.
        • Since 1996 Smolny has been the official residence of the governor of Petersburg.
      2. 🚶 on foot
      3. 2
        🌅 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
        In the evening Rastrelli's cathedral is lit — walk around it via Rastrelli Square, the best angle is from the Neva side
        📖 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.
      4. 🚶 on foot
      5. 3
        🌅 Bolsheokhtinsky Bridge
        Санкт-Петербург, Большеохтинский мост
        A drawbridge of 1911 with lighthouse-like towers; from it you can see Smolny Cathedral and the Okhta Cape with the Lakhta Center in the distance.
        The pedestrian paths pass through the towers. Look back from the middle of the bridge: Smolny in lights above the Neva
        📖 More about the placeCollapse
        Bolsheokhtinsky Bridge
        © Екатерина Борисова · CC BY-SA 4.0
        • The bridge was laid down on 26 June (9 July) 1909, on the 200th anniversary of the Battle of Poltava, and named the Emperor Peter the Great Bridge.
        • Construction was sped up by the sinking of the steamer Arkhangelsk at the Okhta ferry on 7 April 1907 — 39 people died.
        • The design is by Grigory Krivoshein; the bridge opened on 26 October (8 November) 1911.
        • The spans, weighing 3,660 tonnes each, were delivered on the hulls of old ironclads converted into pontoons.
        • It was the first bridge across the Neva in Petersburg with a lower roadway and a lifting span in the middle of the river.
        • The towers on the piers are 36 metres tall; in 2011, for the 100th anniversary, visitors were let into the left-bank tower for the first time.
      6. 🚶 on foot
      7. 4
        🏛 Dormition Church on Malaya Okhta
        Малоохтинский пр., 52
        A church by the old Malookhtinskoye cemetery — one of the few surviving village graveyards of Okhta.
        Along Malookhtinskaya Embankment by the Neva — 15 minutes to the church
        📖 More about the placeCollapse
        Dormition Church on Malaya Okhta
        © AndreyA · Public domain
        Dormition Church on Malaya Okhta
        © AndreyA · Public domain
        • The present church was built in 1996–2001 in memory of the Siege and is called the Siege Church.
        • It stands on the site of the Church of Mary Magdalene (1778–1781), closed in 1938.
        • During the Siege the dead were buried in mass graves in this area.
        • In 2004, while mosaics were being installed, the wind brought down the scaffolding — the rector Viktor Yeroshenko was killed and is buried by the church.
        • Beside the church stand a monument to the children of Beslan (2007) and a monument to Metropolitan Veniamin (2009).
      8. 🚶 on foot
      9. 5
        🌳 Malookhtinsky Park
        Малоохтинский пр., у Невы (вход от Новочеркасского пр.)
        A park on the Neva bank with contemporary sculptures from the 2011 symposium — no signs, so you have to work out each one yourself.
        Walk to the water itself: across the Neva are Smolny and the lit bridge; the sculptures are seen as silhouettes in the dark
        📖 More about the placeCollapse
        Malookhtinsky Park
        © Peterburg23 · CC BY-SA 3.0
        Malookhtinsky Park
        © Peterburg23 · CC BY-SA 3.0
        Malookhtinsky Park
        © Екатерина Борисова · CC BY-SA 4.0
        • The park opened in 1960 and covers 8.26 hectares.
        • The 2007–2008 reconstruction planted 554 trees and more than two thousand shrubs.
        • The sculpture exhibition opened on 13 October 2011 after the second Urban Sculpture Symposium.
        • Novocherkassky Avenue splits the park in two; one half holds the Siege Church.
      10. 🚶 on foot
      11. 6
        🍽 Schwabisches Häuschen restaurant (Shvabsky Domik)
        Новочеркасский пр., 28/19
        ▮▮▮▯▯
        Dinner five minutes from the park; better to book on Friday and Saturday
        🍴 A German restaurant with Bavarian beer, two steps from Novocherkasskaya metro: wooden dining rooms, big portions, a good place for dinner after a walk around Okhta. What to order: Bavarian pork knuckle, Leberkäse, Geschnetzeltes, unfiltered beer.
        📖 More about the placeCollapse
        • The restaurant has been open for over 30 years.
        • The waiters wear traditional German costumes.
        • The menu is built on Swabian cuisine: onion soup, pike-perch cutlets, and a separate section of sausages made from pork, beef, poultry and lamb.
        • The kitchen takes orders until 22:45.

      ↩️ Getting back: The restaurant is by Novocherkasskaya metro — the metro entrance is across the road.

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