Sosnovaya Polyana: estates of the Peterhof Road

⏱ 4 h 30 min🚶 6.5 km + 🚌🍽 1📍 6 stops

🚶 Moderate — 3–7 km

Parks and estates of the old Peterhof Road off the tourist routes: the South Primorsky Park, the Baroque Novoznamenka and a convent on the shore of the bay.

🌳 Parks and nature🏘 Off the centre

🗺 Open in Yandex Maps (with transit)

1
🌳 Yuzhno-Primorsky Park
Петергофское ш. (главный вход с фонтанами)
A 1970s park with ponds and islets, formal avenues and Kiselyov's concrete animals in the children's playground.
Start at the tram stop; ponds and concrete animals.
📖 More about the placeCollapse
© Uz1awa · CC BY-SA 4.0
© Екатерина Борисова · CC BY-SA 4.0
- The 58-hectare park was laid out in 1960–1970 for Lenin's centenary under the architect A. G. Lelyakov.
- Until 1992 it was called the Yuzhno-Primorsky Park named after V. I. Lenin.
- The park was built on a marsh at the foot of the Littorina terrace.
- By design, the wide avenue was to lead out to the Gulf of Finland, but in the 2010s the northern edge was built over with apartment blocks.
- In November 1999 the 28-metre "Hammer and Sickle" monument was blown up here.
- In 2005 the inscription "100 Years of V. I. Lenin" on the monument at the entrance was replaced with "60 Years of Victory".
🚶 on foot
2
🏛 Novoznamenka Estate
ул. Чекистов, 13
A rare example of Elizabethan Baroque: Vorontsov's dacha, later Myatlev's "Novo-Znamenka".
Along Peterhofskoye and Chekistov St. to the Baroque palace (seen over the fence) and the park.
📖 More about the placeCollapse
© Florstein (Telegram:WikiPhoto.Space) · CC BY-SA 4.0
© Florstein (Telegram:WikiPhoto.Space) · CC BY-SA 4.0
- Chancellor Mikhail Vorontsov began building the estate in 1753; the first architect was Giuseppe Trezzini.
- On 17 August 1759 Empress Elizabeth stopped here for lunch on her way to Peterhof.
- Under the Naryshkins in the early 19th century the dacha was a centre of society life, and the imperial family visited.
- In 1866, while visiting the Myatlevs, Pyotr Tchaikovsky finished his First Symphony, "Winter Daydreams".
- From the 1890s there was a hospital for the mentally ill here; the writer Gleb Uspensky spent his last years and died in it.
- The fire of 1941 destroyed the interiors and brought down the balconies and the south façade; until the late 1950s the palace stood in ruins.
- Since 1991 the palace has housed the International Boarding School of the Herzen Institute.
🚶 on foot
3
🌳 Sosnovaya Polyana Park
пр. Ветеранов (вход с северной стороны)
The former landscape park of the Vorontsov dacha with a cascade of ponds on the Sosnovka stream.
A cascade of ponds in Sosnovka.
📖 More about the placeCollapse
© Katerina SPb · CC BY-SA 4.0
© Spb.Terminator · CC BY-SA 4.0
- At the turn of the 19th century the Sosnovka stream was turned into a chain of ponds.
- In the early 19th century under A. L. Naryshkin a landscape park with canals and diagonal paths was laid out in the southern part of the estate.
- In the war German artillery batteries stood in the park, and the conifer forest suffered badly.
- In the 1970s the park was slated for clearing for development — schoolchildren saved it by forming human chains.
- In the early 21st century the park's historic layout was restored.
🚌 bus along Prospekt Veteranov and Peterhofskoye Shosse towards Strelna ≈15 min, or taxi ≈8 min
4
🏛 Trinity-Sergius Primorskaya Hermitage
Санкт-Петербургское ш., 15, Стрельна
An 18th-century monastery on the gulf shore with the Church of St Sergius of Radonezh and an old necropolis.
An 18th-century convent on the shore of the Gulf of Finland
📖 More about the placeCollapse
© MBH · CC BY-SA 4.0
© Canes · CC BY-SA 3.0
- The land here was given in 1732 by Anna Ioannovna to her confessor, Archimandrite Varlaam; the monastery was founded in 1735.
- On 28 June 1762, the day of the coup, Catherine II waited here for Peter III's written abdication.
- Around 1773 the 16-year-old German — the future St Herman of Alaska — came here as a novice.
- From 1834 the hermitage was run by Ignatius Brianchaninov, and it flourished under him.
- In 1813, while a tomb was being prepared in Kazan Cathedral, Kutuzov's remains lay here for almost three weeks.
- The necropolis holds Chancellor Gorchakov, Pushkin's lyceum friend, and the architect Stackenschneider.
- The main Trinity Cathedral (1756–1760, designed by P. A. Trezzini) was blown up in the 1960s; the monastery was returned to the Church in 1993.
🚶 on foot
5
🖼 Peter I's Travel Palace
Стрельна
Closed for restoration; you can't go inside.
The Travelling Palace is under restoration — we look from outside
📖 More about the placeCollapse
© Александровы АГ · CC BY-SA 4.0
© Александровы АГ · CC BY-SA 4.0
- It is the earliest surviving building in Strelna — a wooden palace for Peter I's stops on the way to Kronstadt.
- Peter dreamed of a "Northern Versailles" in Strelna, but water would not flow by gravity to the fountains here, so the residence was moved to Peterhof.
- Nearby, a secret galley dock 425 m long and 200 m wide was dug.
- In 1722 Peter gave the palace to his daughter Elizabeth, and in 1749–1750 Rastrelli put a stone foundation under it.
- After the revolution the palace housed a maternity hospital, and it was only finally handed to Peterhof in 1987.
🚶 on foot
6
☕️ Strelna Restaurant
Санкт-Петербургское ш., 58А, Стрельна
▮▮▮▯▯
Lunch in Strelna.
🍴 A restaurant and banquet hall serving European, Russian and Caucasian cuisine, with a summer terrace in the courtyard, next to the Konstantinovsky Palace. What to order: pork neck shashlik, khachapuri, charcoal-grilled fish, the "Anna Pavlova" cake.