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Walking routes in Saint Petersburg

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      Neva embankments: from Smolny to the Strelka

      ⏱ 5 h 30 min🚶 9 km🍽 1📍 8 stops
      🏃 A lot — over 7 km

      A big walk along the main river — the whole panorama of the city in one day.

      🏛 History and architecture🌳 Parks and nature
      🗺 Open in Yandex Maps
      1. 1
        🌅 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
        Start at Rastrelli’s cathedral
        📖 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.
      2. 🚶 on foot
      3. 2
        🚶 Kutuzov Embankment
        A quiet granite embankment with mansions and a view across the Neva to the Peter and Paul Fortress and the Aurora.
        Along the Neva to the Summer Garden
        📖 More about the placeCollapse
        Kutuzov Embankment
        © Вячеслав Протасов · CC BY-SA 4.0
        • From 1902 the embankment was called the French one, because the French embassy was here; in 1918 it was renamed Jaurès Embankment.
        • It got Kutuzov's name in September 1945, after the field marshal's house at No. 30.
        • Mstislav Rostropovich and Galina Vishnevskaya lived at No. 16 from 1994 to 2007.
        • No. 10 housed the French embassy in 1892–1917, and in the 1950s Academician Ioffe's Institute of Semiconductors.
      4. 🚶 on foot
      5. 3
        🌳 Summer Garden
        🚪 entrance from Palace Embankment
        🎟 partly ticketed · The garden is free; the Summer Palace is ticketed
        Peter I's garden with marble statues, fountains, the Summer Palace and the famous railing on the Neva side.
        A rest in the garden
        📖 More about the placeCollapse
        Summer Garden
        © ElenaLitera · CC BY-SA 4.0
        Summer Garden
        © Florstein · CC BY-SA 4.0
        Summer Garden
        © Евгений Со · CC BY-SA 3.0
        • The garden was laid out by order of Peter I in 1704, on the site of the manor of the Swedish major von Konow.
        • Most of the marble statues are by Italian masters of the turn of the 17th–18th century; they were bought in Italy by Peter's agents.
        • The sections of the Neva railing were forged in 1773–1777 at the merchant Denisov's Tula works.
        • The storm and flood of 21 September 1777 destroyed the garden's fountains, and it was then decided not to restore them.
        • Rossi's Coffee House (1826) was rebuilt from the “Grotto” pavilion, and Charlemagne's wooden Tea House (1827) is finished to look like stone.
        • The monument to Krylov by Pyotr Klodt was put up in 1855; the pedestal is decorated with scenes from the fables.
        • After restoration the garden had its grand reopening on 27 May 2012.
      6. 🚶 on foot
      7. 4
        🚶 Palace Embankment
        A granite embankment along the Neva from the Summer Garden to the Hermitage, with views of the Peter and Paul Fortress and the Spit.
        Past the Hermitage
        📖 More about the placeCollapse
        Palace Embankment
        © Vyacheslav Bukharov · CC BY-SA 4.0
        • The embankment is 1.3 km long; it is named after the Winter and Marble palaces.
        • From 1923 to 1944 it was called Ninth of January Embankment, in memory of the shooting of the 1905 demonstration.
        • The wooden bank was faced with granite by a decree of 1762; the work under Yury Felten went on until 1780.
        • The fabulist Ivan Krylov lived at No. 2, Betskoy's house.
        • Prime Minister Sergey Witte, the painter Konstantin Makovsky and the historian Yevgeny Tarle lived at No. 30.
        • In 1832 the 600-tonne monolith of the Alexander Column was unloaded at this embankment, brought on the special boat ‘St Nicholas’.
      8. 🚶 on foot
      9. 5
        🌅 Palace Bridge
        Raised during the navigation season (April–November) at about 1:10
        Over to Vasilyevsky
        📖 More about the placeCollapse
        Palace Bridge
        © Vyacheslav Bukharov · CC BY-SA 4.0
        Palace Bridge
        © Александровы АГ · CC BY-SA 4.0
        Palace Bridge
        © Safa.daneshvar · CC BY 4.0
        • The permanent bridge opened on 23 December 1916 unfinished, with “temporary” wooden railings.
        • The cast-iron railings replaced the wooden ones only in 1939.
        • The design by engineer Andrzej Pshenitsky of the Kolomna Works Society was chosen for construction.
        • Before opening, the bridge was tested by driving 34 loaded trucks onto all its spans at once.
        • From 1918 to 1944 the bridge was called the Republican Bridge.
        • The earlier floating Palace Bridge, moved to Senate Square, burned down in 1916 from a spark from a passing tug.
        • The tram tracks were removed from the bridge in 1997.
      10. 🚶 on foot
      11. 6
        🌅 Strelka of Vasilyevsky Island (the Spit)
        The Rostral Columns and a view of the Neva
        The Rostral Columns
        📖 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.
      12. 🚶 on foot
      13. 7
        🏛 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.
        The finale at the sphinxes
        📖 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.
      14. 🚶 on foot
      15. 8
        ☕️ Stolle on the 1st Line
        1-я линия В.О., 50
        ▮▯▯▯▯
        Pies after 9 km
        🍴 A pie shop of the Petersburg Stolle chain (since 2002): pies by old Russian recipes, whole or by the slice, sweet and savoury. What to order: a mushroom pie, a fish pie, a chocolate pie.

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