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Walking routes in Saint Petersburg

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      Palace Square, the Moika and the Church of the Savior on Blood

      ⏱ 1 h🚶 1.2 km🍽 0📍 4 stops
      🐢 A little — under 3 km

      From the Alexander Column over the Singing Bridge to the colorful domes of the Church of the Savior on Blood, then a rest on the lawns of Mikhailovsky Garden. The most postcard-perfect Petersburg in one breath.

      👶 With kids🏛 History and architecture⏱ An hour or so
      👶 7–12, 13+ years · ✓ stroller-friendly

      Cross Nevsky Prospekt at street level, not through the underpasses. Steps without a ramp lead into both the Savior on Blood and Kazan Cathedral — you can't take a stroller inside.

      🗺 Open in Yandex Maps
      1. 1
        🏛 Palace Square
        The city's main square between the Winter Palace and the arc of the General Staff Building with the Triumphal Arch.
        Start at the Alexander Column
        📖 More about the placeCollapse
        Palace Square
        © Mikhey77777 · CC BY-SA 4.0
        • From 1918 to 1944 the square was called Uritsky Square, after the head of the Petrograd Cheka, killed by the General Staff Building.
        • On 16 June 1766 Catherine II held a Carousel here — an equestrian festival-tournament with Rinaldi's wooden amphitheater seating several thousand.
        • The granite monolith of the Alexander Column is not fixed in any way and stays on its pedestal under its own weight alone.
        • In 1924 it was decided to replace the angel on the column with a figure of Lenin, but after a year of discussion the project was dropped.
        • The east side of the square is closed off by the Guards Corps headquarters, built by Alexander Bryullov in 1837–1843.
        • In 1932 the square's cobblestones were paved over with asphalt, and the diabase-cobble paving was restored only in 1977.
        • In autumn 1941 they seriously discussed making an airfield for fighters on the square by moving the column, but dropped the idea.
      2. 🚶 on foot
      3. 2
        🏛 Pevchesky Bridge
        A wide bridge over the Moika by Palace Square — one of the widest in the city, opposite the Court Capella.
        The Moika and a view of the Capella
        📖 More about the placeCollapse
        Pevchesky Bridge
        © Florstein · CC BY-SA 4.0
        • Pevchesky is the fourth widest bridge in St Petersburg, after the Blue, Apothecary and Kazan bridges.
        • The first, wooden bridge was built in 1834 to a design by Montferrand — for troops to pass to the parade at the opening of the Alexander Column.
        • The bridge got its name in 1840 because it leads up to the gates of the Court Capella (the Singers' Chapel).
        • Abroad, "Pevchesky Bridge" was a figurative name for the Foreign Ministry of the Russian Empire, which from 1828 stood nearby.
        • According to legend, Nicholas I ordered the bridge built after Count Golovkin, hurrying to dine with him, stepped past the ferry boat straight into the Moika.
        • At the opening of the cast-iron bridge in December 1840, Nicholas I was the first to cross it, in a carriage.
      4. 🚶 on foot
      5. 3
        🏛 Church of the Savior on Blood
        наб. канала Грибоедова, 2Б
        🎟 ticket
        A colorful church in the Old Russian style with enamel and gilded domes on the spot where Alexander II was wounded.
        Inside — 7,000 m² of mosaics
        📖 More about the placeCollapse
        Church of the Savior on Blood
        © Wolfgang Moroder · CC BY-SA 3.0
        Church of the Savior on Blood
        © Florstein · CC BY-SA 4.0
        • The church, 81 meters tall, took 24 years to build — from 1883 to 1907.
        • Alexander III rejected the designs of two competitions and approved the design by Alfred Parland and Archimandrite Ignaty (Malyshev).
        • The mosaics were made by Vladimir Frolov's workshop from sketches by more than 30 artists, among them Viktor Vasnetsov and Mikhail Nesterov.
        • During the siege the church was used as a morgue, and after the war as a scenery warehouse of the Maly Opera Theater.
        • In 1961 steeplejacks found a German high-explosive shell in the central dome, which had lain there for 18 years.
        • The museum opened on 19 August 1997 — exactly 90 years after the church was consecrated.
      6. 🚶 on foot
      7. 4
        🌳 Mikhailovsky Garden
        🚪 entrance from the Griboedov Canal Embankment
        🆓 free entry
        A landscape garden behind the Russian Museum with a pond, lawns and Parland's ornate fence on the Savior on Blood side.
        A breather on the lawns
        📖 More about the placeCollapse
        Mikhailovsky Garden
        © Vyacheslav Bukharov · CC BY-SA 4.0
        Mikhailovsky Garden
        © Александровы АГ · CC BY-SA 4.0
        Mikhailovsky Garden
        © GAlexandrova · CC BY-SA 4.0
        • In the early 18th century the garden was called the Third Summer Garden — to distinguish it from Peter I's other two gardens.
        • From 1712 a residence for Catherine I was built here, and in the greenhouses the gardener grew bananas and pineapples.
        • Under Anna Ioannovna part of the garden was set aside as a "jagd-garten" — a place to hunt deer, boar and hares.
        • Parland's fence was put up in 1907, when part of the garden went to the Savior on Blood and the new canal embankment.
        • In 2001 a full reconstruction of the garden began, after which the summer festival "Imperial Gardens of Russia" started to be held here.

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      Data: © OpenStreetMap · DB-IP · weather — Open-Meteo
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