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Walking routes in Saint Petersburg

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      Voskresenskaya Embankment: Akhmatova and the Sphinxes

      ⏱ 1 h 15 min🚶 2.6 km🍽 1📍 4 stops
      🐢 A little — under 3 km

      The quietest stretch of the Neva embankments: Rusca's Empire-style rotunda, Akhmatova gazing at Kresty, and Shemyakin's sphinxes — and a crossing of Liteyny Bridge to Finlyandsky Station.

      🏛 History and architecture🎨 Art⏱ An hour or so
      🗺 Open in Yandex Maps
      1. 1
        ☕️ Regulyarno Kofe
        пр. Чернышевского, 3
        ▮▯▯▯▯
        From Chernyshevskaya along Chernyshevskogo Prospekt to Shpalernaya — 8 minutes; take-away coffee at No. 3.
        🍴 A coffee shop in the same building as the Skorbyashchenskaya Church — takeaway coffee before the embankment.
      2. 🚶 on foot
      3. 2
        🏛 Church of “Joy of All Who Sorrow” on Shpalernaya
        пр. Чернышевского, 3 (угол Шпалерной ул.)
        Luigi Rusca's Empire-style rotunda church at the corner of Shpalernaya: inside, 24 columns support the dome.
        The church in the same building, entrance from the corner of Shpalernaya. Inside is a rotunda with columns — go in if it's open.
        📖 More about the placeCollapse
        Church of “Joy of All Who Sorrow” on Shpalernaya
        © Daria Funtova · CC BY-SA 3.0
        Church of “Joy of All Who Sorrow” on Shpalernaya
        © Anastasiya Lvova · CC BY-SA 4.0
        • The church was built by Luigi Rusca in 1817–1818; inside it is a rotunda whose dome is held up by 24 Ionic columns.
        • From 1711 the house church of Tsarevna Natalya Alexeyevna stood on this site, at her palace.
        • Until 1931 the miraculous icon “Joy of All Who Sorrow” was kept here; since 1937 it has been in the Transfiguration Cathedral.
        • The church was closed in 1932; from 1970 it housed a branch of the monuments protection society; services returned in 1993.
      4. 🚶 on foot
      5. 3
        🏛 Akhmatova Monument opposite Kresty Prison
        Воскресенская наб., между домами 12 и 14
        A slender figure of Akhmatova on the embankment, facing the Kresty prison on the other bank of the Neva.
        Right along Shpalernaya and to the Neva: a small square between Nos. 12 and 14. Stand next to her and look at the red-brick Kresty across the river.
        📖 More about the placeCollapse
        Akhmatova Monument opposite Kresty Prison
        © Andris Malygin · CC BY 3.0
        • The monument was unveiled on 28 September 2006 opposite Kresty, where her son and husband were held in the 1930s.
        • The place was chosen following “Requiem”: the poet asked for a monument to be put up for her by the prison wall.
        • Akhmatova is shown turning back, like Lot's wife, with a rosary in her hand — allusions to her poems.
        • Lines from “Requiem” are carved on the back of the pedestal.
      6. 🚶 on foot
      7. 4
        🏛 Shemyakin's Sphinxes — Monument to the Victims of Political Repression
        Воскресенская наб., напротив «Крестов»
        Two bronze sphinxes by the descent to the Neva: on one side women's faces, on the other skulls, turned toward Kresty.
        Right at the descent to the water. Walk around the sphinxes: faces on the side toward the buildings, skulls on the side toward the Neva. Then along the embankment to Liteyny Bridge and across it — 20 minutes to Ploshchad Lenina.
        📖 More about the placeCollapse
        Shemyakin's Sphinxes — Monument to the Victims of Political Repression
        © Vitold Muratov · CC BY-SA 4.0
        • The memorial was unveiled on 28 April 1995; the sphinxes were created by Mikhail Shemyakin.
        • The sphinxes' faces are divided in half: young women's profiles face the residential buildings, skulls face Kresty.
        • Between the sphinxes is a granite cross with a prison window and a crown of barbed wire.
        • On the pedestals are plaques with texts by writers and dissidents about the repressions.
        • From 1923 to 2014 the embankment was called Robespierre Embankment.

      ↩️ Getting back: Across Liteyny Bridge to Ploshchad Lenina — 20 minutes; back to Chernyshevskaya — 12 minutes along Shpalernaya and Tavricheskaya.

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