Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
210
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St. Isaac's Cathedral (Isaakevsky
Sobor)
The Moika opens onto Isaac's Square just
south of the staggering gold dome of St.
Isaac's Cathedral. Unadorned by the
peripheral cupolas that characterize other
Russian churches, St. Isaac's is a monolith
inside and out. To 20th-century Russians it
stood less as a religious symbol than a war-
time bastion, having survived shelling by
Nazi forces during the 900-day blockade of
the city then known as Leningrad. The
balcony surrounding the dome, sometimes
open to visitors, offers a stunning vista. See
p. 255 for more information.
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Bronze Horseman (Medny
Vsadnik)
St. Petersburg's most famous rider, the
Bronze Horseman, rears fearlessly over the
Neva River at the opposite end of Decem-
brists' Square from St. Isaac's. It depicts
Peter the Great commanding his city in a
rather fierce and autocratic interpretation
favored in the era of Catherine the Great,
who commissioned the monument. Alex-
ander Pushkin made the statue come alive
to generations of Russians with his brood-
ing, stormy poem of the same name. See
“Monuments, Memorials & Squares” in
chapter 14 for more information.
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Admiralty
Following the shore of the Neva eastward
from the Bronze Horseman, you come to
the carefully classical Admiralty building.
Its spire is the building's raison d'être,
providing a compass point visible from the
city's chief avenues. Once used as a forti-
fied shipyard, the Admiralty is now a naval
academy, and though it's closed to the
public, its grounds are worth a wander.
Its 400m-long (
1
⁄
4
-mile) facade blends
in with the Senate building next door,
and both provide a counterweight to the
Winter Palace up ahead, framing the
Palace Bridge (Dvortsovy Most) across to
Vasilevsky Island. See “Around Palace
Square” in chapter 14.
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SIT ON STRELKA
There's not much in terms of snacks along
this walk, but if you have a bottled drink
or something to munch on in your bag,
this spit of land pointing into the Neva is
a great place to stop and enjoy it. It's
adorned by the two Rostral Columns rep-
resenting four great rivers, which were
Russian at the time the columns were
built: Neva, Volga, Dnieper, and Don. It
gets windy here, but the view can't be
beat. The spit is on Vasilevsky Island, at
the north end of Palace Bridge (Dvortsovy
Most).
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Peter and Paul Fortress (Pet-
ropavlovskaya Krepost)
This next stop demands either a good
15-minute walk or a taxi ride. Rabbit
Island, the sandbar upon which Peter
chose to base himself while his city arose
from the marsh, later became the Peter
and Paul Fortress. You can wander the
grounds for free but must pay to visit the
cathedrals and galleries. It's worth the fee
to see the Peter and Paul Cathedral, which
holds the tombs of Russia's royal families
from Peter's until that of the last Romanov
czar, Nicholas II. See the “Peter & Paul
Fortress” sidebar in chapter 14.
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Nevsky Prospekt
Evening is the ideal time to discover St.
Petersburg's main thoroughfare, as the
daytime traffic thins (a bit) and dusk, or
the long summer sunset, softens its harsher
edges. The street's architectural precision
can still be appreciated by streetlight. Pass-
ersby are less rushed, and the dining and
bar scenes buzz with Russian and just
about every other language. See chapters
13 and 16 for restaurant and nightlife sug-
gestions.
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