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      Ropsha and Koporye: ruins and a fortress

      ⏱ 11 h🚶 5.5 km + 🚌🚕🍽 2📍 5 stops
      🚶 Moderate — 3–7 km

      In the morning, the overgrown imperial park at Ropsha, where Peter III died; later, the medieval Koporye Fortress above a ravine and blini in an old mill.

      👶 With kids🏛 History and architecture🌳 Parks and nature🚆 Out of town
      👶 7–12, 13+ years · ✗ hard with a stroller

      Without a stroller only: the Ropsha park has washed-out trails and fallen trees, and Koporye has a steep climb to the gate and a wooden walkway over the ruins.

      🗺 Open in Yandex Maps (with transit)
      Getting there
      🏛 Kirovsky Zavod station
      Start at Kirovsky Zavod metro
      🚌 by bus to Ropsha Palace Ruins
      bus 481 from the Kirovsky Zavod stop at 07:28, 08:28 or 09:16 to Ropshinsky Park, ≈1 h 20 min
      1. 1
        🏛 Ropsha Palace Ruins
        Ломоносовский р-н, пос. Ропша, Ропшинский парк
        An abandoned 18th-century palace above a park with ponds — a former country residence of the imperial family.
        The palace where Peter III died in 1762 stands in ruins behind a fence, with no entry. Look at the facade from the lawn and at the huge larch nearby
        📖 More about the placeCollapse
        Ropsha Palace Ruins
        © Epifanvettis · CC BY-SA 3.0
        Ropsha Palace Ruins
        © Vitold Muratov · CC BY-SA 3.0
        • The first wooden manor was built here around 1710–1713; the mineral springs were considered its main treasure.
        • Under Elizabeth Petrovna the manor was rebuilt by Rastrelli — the house was remodelled on the model of the Grand Peterhof Palace.
        • After the death of Peter III, Catherine II gave Ropsha to Grigory Orlov, but he never lived here, preferring Gatchina.
        • In 1785 the jeweller Ivan Lazarev bought Ropsha for 12,000 roubles, invested 300,000 and in 1801 sold it to Paul I for 400,000.
        • The ballroom was lit by a gilded chandelier with 36 branches, 20 sconces and 182 candles along the cornice.
        • Since 1990 the palace has been part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site "Historic Centre of Saint Petersburg and Related Groups of Monuments".
        • In 1944 the palace was set on fire by retreating German troops, and in 2015 its portico collapsed — by one account from decay, by another it was pulled down with a crane.
      2. 🚶 on foot
      3. 2
        🌳 Ropsha Park Ponds and the Paper Mill
        Ломоносовский р-н, пос. Ропша, Ропшинский парк
        A landscape park with a chain of ponds on hilly terrain, old trees and the remains of bridges.
        A cascade of 18th-century ponds and the building of a former paper mill. In October the maples in the park are at their brightest. Springs from this area fed the fountains of Peterhof's Lower Park
        📖 More about the placeCollapse
        Ropsha Park Ponds and the Paper Mill
        © Екатерина Борисова · CC BY-SA 4.0
        Ropsha Park Ponds and the Paper Mill
        © Арина Старцева · CC BY-SA 4.0
        Ropsha Park Ponds and the Paper Mill
        © Wagon · CC BY-SA 4.0
        • In 1721 at Ropsha, Peter the Great and the Duke of Holstein ceremonially opened the aqueduct that sent water to the Peterhof fountains.
        • Under Elizabeth, trout for the imperial table were raised in the rectangular Fish Ponds.
        • The 25-hectare system of ponds and canals was created by the Englishman Thomas Gray — he worked at Ropsha for almost half a century.
        • The paper mill was built in 1788–1794 to a design by Yuri Felten; its machines were driven by the water of the cascading ponds.
        • Nicholas II hunted in the vicinity of Ropsha.
      4. 🚶 on foot
      5. 3
        ☕️ Georgia Café-Bakery
        Ломоносовский р-н, пос. Ропша, Стрельнинское ш., 46
        ▮▮▯▯▯
        An early lunch: open from 9:00, average bill 600–1600 ₽. You can take khachapuri to go in the taxi
        🍴 A Georgian café with a bakery at the entrance to Ropsha; you can take baked goods with you for the road. What to order: khachapuri, khinkali (Georgian dumplings), shashlik.
      6. 🚕 taxi about an hour; there is no direct transport between Ropsha and Koporye — order it in advance
      7. 4
        🖼 Koporye Fortress
        Ломоносовский р-н, с. Копорье, Старосельская ул.
        🎟 ticket
        A medieval stone fortress of the 13th–16th centuries on the edge of the Izhora Plateau, with a gate church and a bridge over a ravine.
        From 1 October 2026 (winter schedule): Tuesday–Sunday 10:00–17:00, closed Monday; the ticket office closes 30 minutes before closing, the last tour is an hour before. Groups on Saturdays and Sundays are formed by appointment (+7 931 004-52-39). Without a guide — a multimedia guide in the app (300 ₽), a guide costs 2000 ₽ per group of up to 5 people. Climbing the walls and towers is not allowed (unsafe condition)
        📖 More about the placeCollapse
        Koporye Fortress
        © Dinamik · CC BY-SA 4.0
        Koporye Fortress
        © Магонова Анастасия Валерьевна · CC BY-SA 4.0
        Koporye Fortress
        © Андрей Бобровский · CC BY 3.0
        • The first fortress at Koporye was built in 1240 by knights of the Livonian Order, and in 1241 Alexander Nevsky took and destroyed it.
        • A stone town was built here in 1280 by Prince Dmitry Alexandrovich, but two years later the Novgorodians destroyed it.
        • The present walls are a Novgorodian construction of 1297, rebuilt in the late 15th – early 16th century.
        • The huge breach in the south-west wall is a trace of Russian artillery in the siege of 1703, after which the Swedes surrendered.
        • In 1708 Peter the Great gave the fortress to Menshikov.
        • Fyodor Engel, head of the Interior Ministry, forbade the owner to dismantle the walls for slabs: "it is strictly forbidden to destroy such ancient buildings".
        • Inside are the ruins of the Transfiguration Church, which burned down in 1962, and the Zinoviev chapel-mausoleum.
      8. 🚶 on foot
      9. 5
        ☕️ Vkusnaya Tochka café in the mill
        Ломоносовский р-н, с. Копорье, Старосельская ул., 9
        ▮▯▯▯▯
        Walk down from the fortress to the mill, open 12:00–21:00
        🍴 A small café in an old mill at the foot of the fortress: Koporye tea, coffee and a hot dish of the day. What to order: blini with gooseberry jam and Koporye tea.

      ↩️ Getting back: From Koporye, Tsentr: bus 681 at 17:00 or 18:30 to Lomonosov station (1 h 44 min), then Lastochka trains to Baltiysky every 20–40 min; or 677A at 16:19 to Sosnovy Bor and a Lastochka from Kalishche at 17:49

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