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      Vasilyevsky at dusk: the Strelka, sphinxes, the Lines

      ⏱ 2 h 45 min🚶 2.7 km🍽 1📍 6 stops
      🐢 A little — under 3 km

      Sunset on the Strelka, as the Winter Palace and Peter and Paul Fortress light up across the Neva, a walk along the embankment to the sphinxes and the evening boulevard of 6th and 7th Lines — with dinner at a barbecue smoker.

      🌙 Evening🏛 History and architecture
      🗺 Open in Yandex Maps
      1. 1
        🌅 Strelka of Vasilyevsky Island (the Spit)
        The Rostral Columns and a view of the Neva
        Come by sunset (in late October — around 17:30): at dusk the Winter Palace, the Peter and Paul Fortress and Palace Bridge light up one after another opposite. The columns are lit every evening, and the torches on them are lit only on holidays.
        📖 More about the placeCollapse
        Strelka of Vasilyevsky Island (the Spit)
        © A.Savin · FAL 1.3
        Strelka of Vasilyevsky Island (the Spit)
        © Kora27 · CC BY-SA 3.0
        • Until 1885 Petersburg's seaport worked on the Spit, then it was moved to Gutuevsky Island.
        • The 32-metre Rostral Columns were put up by Thomas de Thomon in 1805–1810; until 1885 they served as lighthouses.
        • The columns' name comes from the Latin rostrum, “ship's prow”: they are decorated with metal ship prows and anchors.
        • The version that the figures at the base of the columns are the Volkhov, Neva, Dnieper and Volga is recent and not confirmed by documents.
        • The Exchange building, shaped like an ancient temple, opened in 1816; since 2013 it has been handed over to the Hermitage.
        • From 1937 to 1989 the square on the Spit was called Pushkin Square.
      2. 🚶 on foot
      3. 2
        🏛 Twelve Collegia (St Petersburg State University)
        Университетская наб., 7–9
        A long red-and-white Petrine building across Vasilyevsky Island — the university's main building.
        Walk along Universitetskaya Embankment past the red-and-white Twelve Collegia and Menshikov Palace: across the Neva, the lights of the Admiralty and the dome of St Isaac's.
        📖 More about the placeCollapse
        Twelve Collegia (St Petersburg State University)
        © A.Savin · FAL 1.3
        Twelve Collegia (St Petersburg State University)
        © Екатерина Борисова · CC BY-SA 4.0
        • Construction began in 1722: the overall design is by Domenico Trezzini, the upper floors by Theodor Schwertfeger.
        • It is the largest monument of Petrine Baroque: 12 identical three-storey sections, one per collegium, the prototype of a ministry.
        • The first session of the collegia in the new building was held in 1732.
        • In 1830 the whole building was handed over to St Petersburg University.
        • Only the Petrovsky Hall has kept its authentic 1735–1736 finish — with the monograms of Peter I and Anna Ioannovna.
        • Scenes of Georgy Danelia's “Autumn Marathon” (1979) were shot here.
      4. 🚶 on foot
      5. 3
        🏛 Sphinxes by the Academy of Arts
        Университетская наб., 17
        A pair of granite Egyptian sphinxes on the steps down to the Neva by the Academy of Arts.
        Go down to the water between the sphinxes: in the dark lamps burn on the descent, opposite are the English Embankment and Blagoveshchensky Bridge.
        📖 More about the placeCollapse
        Sphinxes by the Academy of Arts
        © Alex Fedorov (Florstein) · CC BY-SA 4.0
        Sphinxes by the Academy of Arts
        © GAlexandrova · CC BY-SA 4.0
        • The sphinxes were made under the pharaoh Amenhotep III for his mortuary temple in Thebes; in 1825 they were found by the antiquities hunter Giovanni d'Athanasi.
        • Each sphinx, of pink Aswan granite, weighs 23 tonnes and is 5.24 m long.
        • Buying them was proposed by the traveller Andrey Muravyov, who had seen a sphinx in Alexandria in 1830.
        • The sphinxes had already been sold to France, but the July Revolution wrecked the deal — and Russia bought them for 64,000 rubles.
        • While being loaded onto the ship ‘Buena Esperanza’, one sphinx fell and damaged the headcloth.
        • The sphinxes arrived in May 1832, but for two years stood in the courtyard of the Academy of Arts while Konstantin Thon finished the landing stage.
      6. 🚶 on foot
      7. 4
        🚶 6th and 7th Lines Boulevard
        Vasilyevsky's pedestrian “line”
        A pedestrian boulevard with lamps: in the evening people stroll here, and cafés and coffee shops glow on the corners.
        📖 More about the placeCollapse
        6th and 7th Lines Boulevard
        © Екатерина Борисова · CC BY-SA 4.0
        6th and 7th Lines Boulevard
        © GAlexandrova · CC BY-SA 4.0
        • According to Peter I's plan the lines of Vasilyevsky Island were to be canal embankments; the name of the 6th and 7th lines has been known since 1718.
        • The pedestrian Andreevsky Boulevard between Bolshoy and Sredny prospekts opened in 2002.
        • The monument to Vasily Korchmin, commander of Peter's battery on the Spit, was unveiled at 34, 7th Line in 2003.
        • From 1863 one of the city's first passenger horse trams ran along the 6th Line — a reminder is the carriage with bronze horses by Sredny Prospekt.
        • The painter Nicholas Roerich was born at No. 1 on the 6th Line in 1874.
        • Korney Chukovsky lived at No. 5 on the 6th Line in 1905–1906.
      8. 🚶 on foot
      9. 5
        🏛 St Andrew's Cathedral
        6-я линия В.О., 11
        A pink-and-white 18th-century cathedral with a Baroque bell tower on the 6th Line.
        The pink-and-white cathedral with its Baroque bell tower is loveliest from the boulevard, once the lamps are lit.
        📖 More about the placeCollapse
        St Andrew's Cathedral
        © Екатерина Борисова · CC BY-SA 4.0
        St Andrew's Cathedral
        © A.Savin · FAL 1.3
        • The stone cathedral was founded in 1764 and consecrated in 1780; its design is attributed to the architect A. F. Vist.
        • The cathedral was the chapter church of the Order of St Andrew the First-Called.
        • Inside survives a carved, gilded three-tier 18th-century iconostasis, 17 m high.
        • The neighbouring Andreevsky Market is named after the cathedral.
        • Back in 1724 Peter commissioned the Swede Tessin to design a St Andrew's church on the Spit “like St Paul's Cathedral in London”, but did not live to see it built.
        • The clock on the bell tower, made in Kronstadt, was installed in 1894.
      10. 🚶 on foot
      11. 6
        🍽 Tootsie restaurant on 9th Line
        9-я линия В.О., 30
        ▮▮▮▯▯
        Dinner: brisket and ribs from the smoker. The restaurant is open until 23:00, and the kitchen takes orders until 22:30.
        🍴 An American barbecue restaurant: smoked meat is finished on the spot. What to order: brisket, pork ribs, a burger. The kitchen takes orders until 22:30.
        📖 More about the placeCollapse
        • The restaurant is named after Tootsie Tomanetz, an elderly Texan pitmaster who was still cooking meat in the pits on weekends at 90.
        • The cuisine is that of “one-storey America”: simple, hearty dishes of the working-class American South.
        • The menu's pride is brisket, slow-smoked beef chest.
        • The restaurant gets its smoked meat from Saint-Brisket, one of Russia's largest barbecue producers, and finishes it on site.
        • From Monday to Thursday, 16:00–18:00, all steaks are 20% off.
        • A second Tootsie is at 12/17 Zvenigorodskaya Street.

      ↩️ Getting back: to Vasileostrovskaya metro — 5 minutes on foot along Sredny Prospekt

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