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      Porokhovye: Zhernovka and the gunpowder settlement

      ⏱ 4 h🚶 5.2 km🍽 1📍 5 stops
      🚶 Moderate — 3–7 km

      From Quarenghi’s estate on the Okhta to the rotunda church and the gates of the gunpowder works.

      🏛 History and architecture🏘 Off the centre
      🗺 Open in Yandex Maps
      1. 1
        🏛 Zhernovka Manor
        Ириновский пр., 9
        A Classicist estate of the 1790s in Okhta (attributed to Quarenghi) with a pier and a pond.
        From Ladozhskaya metro by bus along Industrialny or 30 min on foot; a pond and a pier
        📖 More about the placeCollapse
        Zhernovka Manor
        © Екатерина Борисова · CC BY-SA 4.0
        Zhernovka Manor
        © Екатерина Борисова · CC BY-SA 4.0
        Zhernovka Manor
        © Anastasiya Lvova · CC BY-SA 4.0
        • The main house with two wings topped by turrets was built in 1794–1796 on the steep bank of the Okhta.
        • Quarenghi's authorship is supported by his signed drawing of a pavilion by the pier and a similar estate design in the Castello Sforzesco in Milan.
        • In 1827 Nicholas I passed Zhernovka to the merchant Kramer, who grew vegetables and fruit here for sale and ran a dairy farm.
        • The second name, the Bezobrazov dacha, appeared after 1844, when the estate's heiress Anna married N. A. Bezobrazov.
        • In 1924 the artist Nikolai Lanceray described and photographed the estate — his photos later became the basis for restoration.
        • In 1929 the main house was turned into a horse veterinary clinic and cowshed, later into dormitories; the paintings and tiled stoves were lost then.
        • Zhernovka has been a monument of federal significance since 2001; from 2023 it is being transferred to the city to be adapted as a music school.
      2. 🚶 on foot
      3. 2
        🍽 PhaliKhinkali on Udarnikov
        пр. Ударников, 34
        ▮▮▮▯▯
        Lunch
        🍴 A Georgian restaurant of a Petersburg chain, handy for lunch in Porokhovye. What to order: khinkali (Georgian dumplings), assorted pkhali, Adjarian khachapuri.
      4. 🚶 on foot
      5. 3
        🏛 Ilyinskaya Church in Porokhovye
        ул. Ильинская слобода, 4
        An 18th-century rotunda church built for the workers of the Okhta Gunpowder Factory.
        The rotunda church of the gunpowder settlement
        📖 More about the placeCollapse
        Ilyinskaya Church in Porokhovye
        © Andreykokin · CC BY-SA 4.0
        Ilyinskaya Church in Porokhovye
        © Nikolai Bulykin · CC BY-SA 4.0
        Ilyinskaya Church in Porokhovye
        © GAlexandrova · CC BY-SA 4.0
        • The present church was built in 1782–1785 to a design by Nikolai Lvov; from 1717 wooden chapels and churches had stood on this spot.
        • The rotunda is ringed by 16 Ionic columns, and the pillarless hall inside is painted sky blue with an image of Christ in the centre.
        • In 1805–1806 Fyodor Demertsov added a heated Alexander Nevsky side chapel with a spired bell tower.
        • In 1938 the cathedral was closed and given to civil air defence, in 1974 the building burned, and in 1988 it was returned to the diocese.
        • The altar screen holds the Royal Doors of 1762 from the iconostasis of the Great Church of the Winter Palace.
      6. 🚶 on foot
      7. 4
        🏛 Alexander Gates of the Gunpowder Factory
        ул. Коммуны / Ильинская слобода
        The gates of the Okhta Gunpowder Factory designed by Demertsov (1806) and an old powder cellar next to them.
        The gates and the gunpowder cellar
        📖 More about the placeCollapse
        Alexander Gates of the Gunpowder Factory
        © Екатерина Борисова · CC BY-SA 4.0
        • The Okhta Gunpowder Factory was founded by decree of Peter the Great in 1715 — the oldest gunpowder production in Petersburg.
        • The gates appeared after the explosion of 1803: Demertsov rebuilt the factory and spread the dangerous workshops far apart.
        • In the 1820s the wooden gates were replaced with stone ones designed by Zakhar Krasnopevkov.
        • The worst explosion happened on 31 August 1858: 1,500 poods of gunpowder blew up and 50 people died.
        • The names of Mendeleev, Zasyadko and Konstantinov are tied to the factory; in 1894 a smokeless-powder laboratory opened here.
        • The whole Porokhovye district is named after this factory's buildings.
      8. 🚶 on foot
      9. 5
        🌅 Okhta Reservoir at the "Stone Flower"
        ул. Коммуны, у южного берега разлива
        The southern edge of the Okhta Reservoir — a water body created for the gunpowder mills — by the monument to the factory.
        A walk along the Okhta reservoir
        📖 More about the placeCollapse
        Okhta Reservoir at the "Stone Flower"
        © Екатерина Борисова · CC BY-SA 4.0
        Okhta Reservoir at the "Stone Flower"
        © Екатерина Борисова · CC BY-SA 4.0
        • The reservoir appeared in 1716, when a dam backed up the Okhta 9 km from its mouth for the gunpowder factory.
        • The reservoir stretches 5 km and is about 250 m wide; its surface area is 1.08 km² and it is no more than 4 m deep.
        • The Okhta dam is the oldest hydraulic structure in Petersburg: the first, wooden one was built in 1715.
        • The "Stone Flower" is built from old millstones left over from the Russian Empire-era dam — it was made during the 2013–2015 reconstruction.
        • The dam's railings with artillery emblems, lost in 1965, were recreated in 2013–2017.

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