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      The Polytechnic, Sosnovka and the Benois garden

      ⏱ 4 h 30 min🚶 6 km🍽 2📍 9 stops
      🚶 Moderate — 3–7 km

      A 1900s student campus in a pine forest, a former military airfield in Sosnovka’s woods and Benois’ dacha garden with a restaurant on the terrace.

      🏛 History and architecture🌳 Parks and nature🏘 Off the centre
      🗺 Open in Yandex Maps
      1. 1
        🏛 Pokrov Church at the Polytechnic
        Политехническая улица, 29Б
        The university church on the Polytechnic campus, revived after the Soviet interruption.
        2 minutes from Politekhnicheskaya metro.
        📖 More about the placeCollapse
        Pokrov Church at the Polytechnic
        © Тулип · CC BY-SA 4.0
        Pokrov Church at the Polytechnic
        © Александров · CC BY-SA 3.0
        • The church was built in 1912–1913 in the Neo-Russian style to a design by I. V. Padlevsky, who won the competition.
        • The church was consecrated on 15 (28) December 1913 and dedicated to the Intercession (Pokrov), in memory of the institute's founding day.
        • In 1923 the church was closed, its dome and bell tower dismantled, and it became a club, a warehouse, then a military department lecture hall.
        • In 1992 the church was returned to the Church, and on 10 April 1993 Metropolitan Ioann (Snychev) consecrated it.
        • In 1995 the domes and bell tower were restored and a three-tier iconostasis installed.
      2. 🚶 on foot
      3. 2
        🏛 Polytechnic University Main Building
        Политехническая улица, 29
        A huge 1899–1902 building by the architect E. Wirrich with a white assembly hall — an early 20th-century "campus" in a pine park.
        Wirrich’s main building — look at the facade and the park.
        📖 More about the placeCollapse
        Polytechnic University Main Building
        © GAlexandrova · CC BY-SA 4.0
        Polytechnic University Main Building
        © Modelena · CC BY-SA 3.0
        • The foundation stones were laid on 18 June 1900; the main building was finished in 1902.
        • For the main building Wirrich took as his basis the design of the Technical University in Berlin.
        • The building is shaped like the letter "H" in plan, and all lecture rooms face south-west for daylight.
        • The campus was conceived as a self-contained one on the model of Cambridge and Oxford.
        • When the First World War began, the whole main building was converted into a hospital.
      4. 🚶 on foot
      5. 3
        🖼 Polytechnic History Museum
        Политехническая улица, 29, корп. 2Д
        The museum of the university of Witte, Ioffe and Kapitsa: instruments, documents and the story of the "polytechnic town".
        On weekdays — the university museum (better to sign up).
        📖 More about the placeCollapse
        • The institute was founded on 19 February 1899 on the instruction of Finance Minister Sergei Witte; Dmitri Mendeleev helped organise it.
        • Classes began in autumn 1902 in four departments: economics, electromechanics, shipbuilding and metallurgy.
        • After Bloody Sunday in 1905, classes were suspended until autumn 1906.
        • In 1909 the Aeronautics Courses opened here — Russia's first aviation school.
        • In 1911 Russia's first higher automobile school appeared here.
        • From 1934 to 1940 the university was called the Leningrad Industrial Institute.
      6. 🚶 on foot
      7. 4
        🏛 House of Scientists in Lesnoy
        Политехническая улица, 29Н
        A mansion in the Polytechnic park — a professors' club with concerts and lectures.
        The wooden House of Scientists in the park.
        📖 More about the placeCollapse
        House of Scientists in Lesnoy
        © GAlexandrova · CC BY-SA 4.0
        • The scientists' club opened in 1934 on the initiative of Abram Ioffe, Nikolai Semyonov and Alexander Baykov.
        • The club took over a former school for the institute staff's children, and until 1914 the building housed the Polytechnic hospital.
        • During the Siege a hospital operated in the building.
        • In September 1946 the club was turned into the Leningrad House of Scientists in Lesnoy.
        • It has nothing to do with the Gorky House of Scientists.
      8. 🚶 on foot
      9. 5
        ☕️ Pirogovy Dvorik on Politekhnicheskaya
        Политехническая улица, 31
        ▮▯▯▯▯
        A snack of pies on the way to Sosnovka.
        🍴 A student pie shop by the metro: quick, filling and cheap. What to order: lingonberry-and-apple pie, a lingonberry galette, zharkoye (meat and potato stew), sea buckthorn tea.
      10. 🚶 on foot
      11. 6
        🌳 Sosnovka Park
        вход со Светлановского проспекта
        A huge pine forest park that was a military airfield during the war: trails, ponds and lots of squirrels.
        Along Politekhnicheskaya and Svetlanovsky — the entrance to Sosnovka.
        📖 More about the placeCollapse
        Sosnovka Park
        © Александровы АГ · CC BY-SA 4.0
        Sosnovka Park
        © GAlexandrova · CC BY-SA 4.0
        Sosnovka Park
        © Lena 812 · CC BY-SA 4.0
        • The park covers 302 hectares and is one of the largest in the city.
        • In February 1840 Lermontov fought a duel here with Ernest de Barante, roughly at the crossing of Toreza and Svetlanovsky.
        • In summer 1844 Turgenev and Belinsky strolled along the pine alleys here.
        • In 1893 the forest was bought by the city mayor V. A. Ratkov-Rozhnov.
        • In 2003 the Republic of Korea gave 15 wooden jangseung totem posts; in 2015 they were removed because of vandalism.
        • In summer 1942 a special school training saboteurs in case Leningrad was captured was moved here.
      12. 🚶 on foot
      13. 7
        🏛 Sosnovka Military Airfield Memorial
        парк Сосновка
        A memorial to the Sosnovka military airfield that operated here during the war.
        By forest alleys to the airfield monument.
        📖 More about the placeCollapse
        Sosnovka Military Airfield Memorial
        © GAlexandrova · CC BY-SA 4.0
        • The runway was built from September to December 1941.
        • The airfield operated from 1942 to 1945.
        • The 44th Fighter Air Defence Regiment was based here and became the 11th Guards in March 1942.
        • The memorial on the north-eastern edge of the former airfield was erected in February 1978.
        • A memorial cemetery of pilots survives nearby.
      14. 🚶 on foot
      15. 8
        🌳 Benois Garden
        Тихорецкий проспект, 17
        🚪 entrance from Svetlanovsky Prospekt
        What remains of the Benois family dacha: a garden with a pond and dacha buildings that host festivals and markets.
        Across the northeast edge of the park to the Benois garden.
        📖 More about the placeCollapse
        Benois Garden
        © GAlexandrova · CC BY-SA 4.0
        Benois Garden
        © Екатерина Борисова · CC BY-SA 4.0
        Benois Garden
        © GAlexandrova · CC BY-SA 4.0
        Benois Garden
        © Rufus Shinra · CC BY-SA 4.0
        • In the 1890s the architect Julius Benois leased this land for 50 years and by 1904 had built a farm to his own drawings.
        • The tower of the main house was both an ornament and a fire watchtower.
        • The neighbouring avenue was named after Benois and in 1952 became Tikhoretsky.
        • After the Revolution the farm became the "Lesnoye" state farm, which supplied the city with vegetables during the Siege.
        • In 2001 the dacha burned down; the house was rebuilt from archive photos, and a restaurant opened in the former cowshed.
        • The plot officially received the name "Benois Garden" in 2006.
      16. 🚶 on foot
      17. 9
        🍽 Benois Farm · 🧸 play area
        Тихорецкий проспект, 17Г
        ▮▮▮▯▯
        Dinner on the terrace in the garden; it’s 15 minutes to Politekhnicheskaya/Akademicheskaya metro.
        🍴 A "farm-style" restaurant right in the Benois Garden with a big terrace and a gluten-free menu. What to order: porcini risotto, duck leg, pizza, quinoa salad.

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