Sablino: caves, canyons and two waterfalls

⏱ 7 h🚶 5 km + 🚆🚌🚕🍽 2📍 5 stops

🚶 Moderate — 3–7 km

By commuter train to the south: tunnels with bats, the Sablino Waterfall in a canyon and the wide Tosna Waterfall on the Tosna.

👶 With kids🌳 Parks and nature🚆 Out of town

👶 7–12, 13+ years · ✗ hard with a stroller

Not for a stroller: the cave has steps and narrow passages, and dirt trails with roots and steep descents lead to the waterfalls. Taking preschoolers into the Left-Bank Cave is not recommended.

🗺 Open in Yandex Maps (with transit)

Getting there

🏛 Ladozhsky Railway Station

Заневский пр., 73

Commuter trains no longer run from Moskovsky Station (high-speed rail construction). Other options until 24 October: from Obukhovo at 08:42 (30 min), on weekdays a Lastochka from Rybatskoye at 09:27. Book the cave in advance (October 2026 timetable)

🚆 by suburban train to Lavashok Bakery

train from Ladozhsky Station to Sablino at 07:46 or 09:10 (≈55 min), from 25 October — at 08:03 and 09:18; 5 min on foot from the station

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☕️ Lavashok Bakery
Ульяновка, Советский пр., 13
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Five minutes from the station. Bring samsa or chebureks with you — there are no cafés by the caves and waterfalls. Closed Mon
🍴 An Uzbek bakery five minutes from Sablino station — handy for takeaway, as there's no café at the caves. What to order: samsa, chebureki, plov.
🚌 taxi ≈10 min; bus 334 along Sovetsky Prospekt runs rarely
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✨ Sablino Caves (Left-Bank Cave)
Ульяновка, Советский пр., 205А
🎟 ticket · the caves can only be visited with a guided tour
19th-century galleries where quartz sand for glass was mined: underground halls, a lake and bat colonies; it's +8 °C inside all year round.
The tour lasts about 45 minutes, and it is +8 °C inside. Sessions by appointment: Tue–Fri around 12:00–14:00, Sat–Sun 11:00–15:00; closed Mon. Adult 1250 ₽, schoolchild 850 ₽
📖 More about the placeCollapse
© Poilklad · CC BY-SA 4.0
© Anastasiya Lvova · CC BY-SA 4.0
- Most of the workings appeared from the second half of the 19th century, when the growing city of Petersburg needed a lot of glass.
- The Left-Bank Cave is one of four large caves at Sablino; the others are known locally as Zhemchuzhnaya ("Pearl"), Shtany ("Trousers") and Verevka ("Rope").
- Four species of Myotis bats from the Leningrad Oblast Red Data Book hibernate in the Left-Bank Cave, as well as the northern bat and the brown long-eared bat.
- After mining ended, the galleries began to collapse and flood, and the once-continuous workings broke up into separate labyrinths.
- In 1923 the village of Sablino was renamed Ulyanovka in memory of the Ulyanov family's stay here.
🚶 on foot
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🌅 Sablino Waterfall
Ульяновка, памятник природы «Саблинский», каньон реки Саблинки
A stream tumbling off a limestone ledge in a deep wooded canyon with outcrops of ancient rock.
About a kilometer west of the cave along the eco-trail into the Sablinka canyon. The waterfall is low but beautiful, with a wooden viewing platform; free, open around the clock
📖 More about the placeCollapse
© Ляшко Светлана · CC BY-SA 4.0
© Denis 888 · CC BY-SA 4.0
© Denis 888 · CC BY-SA 4.0
- The waterfall's height varies from year to year — from 2 to 4 metres — and in a drought it can dry up completely.
- The Sablino waterfalls are the only place on the East European Plain that is home to Europe's largest green fly, Liancalus virens.
- The walls of the Sablinka canyon expose rocks of the Cambrian and Ordovician periods.
- The "Sablinsky" natural monument covers 328.8 hectares and includes two waterfalls, canyons and caves.
🚶 on foot
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🌅 Tosna (Gertovsky) Waterfall
Ульяновка, река Тосна
A wide limestone ledge across the river in the Tosna canyon with high, steep banks.
Through the village to the Tosna, about 40 minutes on foot. The waterfall is 2–4 meters high and about 30 wide — Niagara's peer. In autumn there is more water; don't walk on the rocks at the edge
📖 More about the placeCollapse
© Vladimir Pankratov · CC BY-SA 4.0
© Grigorius m · CC BY-SA 4.0
© Konstantin Morin · CC BY-SA 4.0
- Within the natural monument is a campsite of Alexander Nevsky before the battle with the Swedes — marked by a cross and a stele.
- On the right bank of the Tosna, in Pustynka, stood the estate of Alexey Konstantinovich Tolstoy — the "homeland" of Kozma Prutkov.
- Ivan Turgenev and the philosopher Vladimir Solovyov visited Tolstoy at Pustynka; a pond with an island and old trees remain of the estate.
- The Tosna canyon is part of the Sablino natural monument; its cliffs are made of Cambrian and Ordovician rock.
🚕 taxi ≈10 min to the station, or ≈3.5 km on foot
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☕️ Spletni Café
Ульяновка, Вокзальная ул., 1А
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A late lunch by the platform
🍴 A small café-pizzeria right by Sablino station — handy for a bite before the train. What to order: the Cordon Bleu or Diablo pizza, Caesar salad.

↩️ Getting back: From Sablino station: 16:23 and 18:47 — to Ladozhsky Station, 17:51 and 19:30 (Lastochka) — to Rybatskoye, 18:37 and 19:41 — to Obukhovo