Historic Cities · Russia
St Petersburg through the ages
Saint Petersburg, formerly known as Petrograd (Петроград) and later Leningrad (Ленинград), is the second-largest city in Russia, after Moscow, the nation's capital. Situated on the Neva River at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea, its area of 1,439 square kilometers (556 sq mi) makes it the smallest administrative division of Russia by area.
St Petersburg in 1760
Elizabethan St Petersburg
This is the capital under Empress Elizabeth at the height of her baroque building boom, when Rastrelli's turquoise-and-gold palaces and Smolny's soaring blue domes are reshaping the marshy shoreline. The walk follows frozen waterways, wooden embankments and wide parade grounds between the Admiralty spire and the nearly finished Winter Palace, showing public life, markets and winter traffic in the young imperial capital.
The skyline is a sequence of low wooden houses, stuccoed baroque façades and gilded cupolas; Rastrelli's palaces gleam in pastel turquoise, white and gold, and Smolny's blue domes puncture the low horizon. Embankments remain earth and timber rather than granite, quays and bridges are temporary or wooden, and the Admiralty's thin gilded spire dominates the centre. In winter the Neva and canals ice over, sledges cross broad frozen avenues and smoke rises from small chimneys.
The walk — 22 streets, squares and views
Gulf of Finland Approach → Strelka, Vasilievsky Island → Twelve Collegia → Kunstkamera by the Neva → English Embankment → Admiralty and Spire → Palace Square → Winter Palace Facade → Winter Canal → Palace Embankment → …
Step inside — 14 interiors
Harbour Merchants' Counting Room · Academy Assembly Hall · Natural History Cabinet · Admiralty Model Room · Jordan Staircase · Grand Audience Chamber · Hermitage Picture Cabinet · Marble Grotto Pavilion · Ice-Hill Festival Pavilion · Mirrored Ballroom of a Nobleman · Goldsmith's Workshop · Great Merchants' Arcade · Main Nave and Iconostasis · Cathedral Nave and Iconostasis
Planned from the Wikipedia record: History of Saint Petersburg.
St Petersburg in 1830
Pushkin's Petersburg
The imperial capital of the Romanovs, Saint Petersburg in 1830 is a city of new stone embankments, broad neoclassical squares and the Winter Palace’s low, ordered height. Walkers will pass the Bronze Horseman and the General Staff arch, thread Nevsky Prospect’s shops and bridges, and end where the Neva opens to the Gulf of Finland under the long white nights.
By 1830 the city reads as pale stone and sober neoclassicism: low, strict facades, granite embankments along the Neva and canals, and broad radial avenues leading to the Admiralty. The Winter Palace and the spire of the Admiralty set the permitted skyline; churches and colonnades punctuate long vistas. Streets are cobbled and narrow alleys still exist between grand façades, while river traffic — small sailboats, barges and rowed ferries — fills the waterways.
The walk — 20 streets, squares and views
Gulf of Finland Approach → English Embankment → Palace Embankment & Hermitage → Palace Square — General Staff Arch → Bronze Horseman, Senate Square → Admiralty and Spire → Nevsky Prospect, The Beginning → Kazan Cathedral → Gostiny Dvor → Anichkov Bridge → …
Step inside — 13 interiors
Literary Salon · Military Gallery · Winter Palace Ball Room · Admiralty Council Room · Confectioner's Salon · Cathedral Nave · Covered Trade Hall · Music Salon · Main Auditorium · Moika Ballroom · Nave under Scaffold · Cathedral Interior · Stock Exchange Hall
Planned from the Wikipedia record: Saint Petersburg.
St Petersburg in 1913
Tercentenary Petersburg
This is the city at the height of imperial display and everyday modernity on the eve of the First World War, weeks into the Romanov tercentenary celebrations. The walk moves from the Neva's broad water and quay-lined avenues through theatres, tram-lined Nevsky Prospect, artisan workshops and bohemian cellars to the rostral columns and wide sky over Vasilievsky Spit.
The 1913 skyline reads as layered European capitals: gilded spires and green domes rise behind long pale stucco façades and the dark mass of the Winter Palace; granite embankments meet tidal grey water and cast-iron bridges with carved railings; electric trams hum along broad avenues, horse-drawn cabs jostle with early motorcars, and smokestacks and factory chimneys mark the industrial suburbs beyond the classical centre.
The walk — 23 streets, squares and views
Kronstadt Harbour → English Embankment Pier → Peter and Paul Fortress → Palace Embankment → Palace Square → Admiralty Building → St Isaac's Square → Bolshaya Morskaya Street → Fabergé Workshop → Yusupov Palace, Moika → …
Step inside — 12 interiors
Cathedral Nave · Armorial Hall · Isaac's Nave · Goldsmiths' Atelier · Design Studio · Small Theatre · Main Auditorium · Cellar Salon · Bookshop Dome · Grand Salon · Merchant Arcade · Arrival Hall
Planned from the Wikipedia record: History of Saint Petersburg.
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