Blokhina Street: Rinaldi's cathedral and Kamchatka

⏱ 1 h 30 min🚶 2.3 km🍽 2📍 4 stops

🐢 A little — under 3 km

An hour and a half in old Petersburg Side: Rinaldi's cathedral, the boiler room where Tsoi worked as a stoker, and Sytny Market to finish.

🏛 History and architecture🎨 Art⏱ An hour or so

🗺 Open in Yandex Maps

1
🏛 Prince Vladimir Cathedral
ул. Блохина, 26
🆓 free entry
A five-domed cathedral by Rinaldi and Starov with a three-tier bell tower — the main church of the old Petersburg Side.
Three minutes from Sportivnaya. Step to the other side of Blokhina Street to see all five domes and the bell tower at once; entry inside is free.
📖 More about the placeCollapse
© Nikolai Bulykin · CC BY-SA 4.0
© A.Savin · FAL 1.3
© Monoklon · CC BY-SA 4.0
- The first wooden church on this site appeared in 1708.
- Antonio Rinaldi drew up the design of the five-domed cathedral in 1765, and Ivan Starov completed it.
- The main altar was consecrated in 1789.
- From 1845 to 1917 it was the chapter church of the Order of St Vladimir.
- From 1938 to 1941 it was the cathedral of the Leningrad diocese.
🚶 on foot
2
☕️ Cake Shop on Blokhina Street
ул. Блохина, 27
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Opposite the cathedral — coffee and a slice of cake. Open from 9 a.m., handy if it's too early for Kamchatka.
🍴 A small café-patisserie opposite the Prince Vladimir Cathedral. What to order: a slice of cake and a cappuccino, an éclair to take away.
📖 More about the placeCollapse
- Open daily from 9 to 21.
- It is two minutes from Sportivnaya metro.
- A handy spot for coffee before a walk along Blokhina Street.
🚶 on foot
3
🖼 Kamchatka Boiler Room
Санкт-Петербург, ул. Блохина, 15
🎟 partly ticketed · the museum is free, concerts require a ticket
The boiler room where Viktor Tsoi worked as a stoker; now a club-museum with his guitar and concerts.
Go down the steps to the boiler room: Tsoi's guitar, photographs, that very furnace. Opens at 13:00; in the evening there are ticketed concerts.
📖 More about the placeCollapse
- Tsoi and Sergey Firsov took jobs here as stokers in autumn 1986, and Tsoi worked until 1988.
- Alexander Bashlachev and Svyatoslav Zaderiy also worked in the boiler room.
- In 1987 Alexey Uchitel's film Rock was shot here: Tsoi tosses coal into the furnace and says he feels free.
- The song "Kamchatka" was written long before he worked in the boiler room — it came out on the album 46 in 1983.
- Kino guitarist Alexey Rybin wrote a book about the boiler room, "Eto sladkoe slovo — Kamchatka" (That Sweet Word, Kamchatka).
🚶 on foot
4
🧺 Sytny Market
Сытнинская пл., 5
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Along Blokhina and Kronverksky — 10 minutes. Stop for cottage cheese and cheese or eat plov on the second floor; from here it's 10 minutes to Gorkovskaya.
🍴 The city's oldest market, in a building of 1913: meat, dairy and fruit rows, a café on the second floor. What to order: chicken Kyiv at the “180°” (Kotletnaya) stall, plov with flatbread at Plovnaya, farm cheeses and curd cheese.