The Playing-Card Factory and the Nevskaya Zastava Museum

⏱ 1 h 20 min🚶 3.1 km🍽 1📍 4 stops

🚶 Moderate — 3–7 km

The building where all the empire's maps and cards were printed, a church shaped like a kulich, a wooden workers' house-museum and a bun to finish — the history of the zastava in one small patch by the metro.

🏛 History and architecture🏘 Off the centre⏱ An hour or so

🗺 Open in Yandex Maps

1
🏛 Imperial Playing Card Factory
пр. Обуховской Обороны, 110
A red-brick building where for almost a century all of Russia's playing cards were printed — the very “atlas” deck design was devised for this factory.
Across the avenue from the metro. We look at the red-brick facade with its little tower; no entry inside. Remember the “satin” deck — its design was born here.
📖 More about the placeCollapse
- From 1819 the factory had a monopoly on playing cards, and the income went to foundling homes.
- In its very first year 20,000 decks were printed here, and by the early 20th century up to 20,000 a day.
- The design of the “atlas” deck was created by the academician Adolf Charlemagne.
- The main building with a turret facing the Neva was begun in 1867 to a design by G. Kh. Stegeman.
- In Soviet times it housed the Colour Printing Combine; in 2006 the neighbouring buildings were demolished and the main one preserved.
🚶 on foot
2
🏛 "Kulich and Paskha" Church
Санкт-Петербург, пр. Обуховской Обороны, 235
N. Lvov's Trinity Church (1785–1790): a rotunda shaped like a kulich (Easter bread) and a bell tower like a paskha (Easter cheese dessert) — the most recognisable church on the factory outskirts.
Along Prospekt Obukhovskoy Oborony to the Neva, five minutes. The rotunda “kulich” (Easter bread) and the pyramid bell tower “paskha” are best seen from the embankment.
📖 More about the placeCollapse
© GAlexandrova · CC BY-SA 4.0
- The idea of giving the church the shape of a kulich and paskha came from the patron, Procurator General Prince Alexander Vyazemsky.
- The manor church proved too small for the parish, and in 1858 a narthex and vestibule were added.
- In 1874 the future admiral Alexander Kolchak was baptised here.
- The church functioned in Soviet times too, but in 1937 its rector was shot and in March 1938 the church was closed for use as a club.
- The revered icon "Joy of All Who Sorrow" (with the coins) is kept here.
🚶 on foot
3
🖼 Nevskaya Zastava Museum
Ново-Александровская ул., 23
🎟 ticket
A district museum in a wooden house of 1894 for Obukhov Plant workers: the memorial room of the worker Shelgunov and the history of the Zastava district.
Novo-Aleksandrovskaya Street 23 — a log house with a memorial site. The Shelgunov room takes 20–30 minutes, closed on Monday. Opposite is a hill with bricks from St Seraphim's Church.
📖 More about the placeCollapse
© Oggy Fisher · CC BY-SA 4.0
- The two-storey wooden house was built for Obukhov Plant workers; it survived the Siege and was residential until 1965.
- In 1894–1895 the fitter Vasily Shelgunov lived here, and Lenin's Marxist circle met in his room.
- The museum opened on 8 August 1967, on the 100th anniversary of Shelgunov's birth.
- Since 1992 it has been a local history museum: the district's factories, the Siege, the poets of Nevskaya Zastava.
- Nearby, on the even side of the street, is a hill with bricks: all that is left of the Church of Seraphim of Sarov.
🚶 on foot
4
☕️ Khlebnik on Babushkina
ул. Бабушкина, 111
▮▯▯▯▯
Along Babushkina Street to the west. Coffee and a bun to go — it's 12 minutes on foot from here to Proletarskaya.
🍴 A bakery-café of the Khlebnik chain by Mariupolskaya Square: fresh pastries, coffee and a couple of tables. What to order: a cinnamon swirl, a pirozhok, a choux éclair, coffee.