NEVSKY PERSPECTIVE

"There's nothing more beautiful than the Nevsky prospect, at least in St. Petersburg. Here, it is the origin of everything. How brightly it shines, this street, the princess of our capital! "Nicolas Gogol (The Nevsky Perspective).

More than 4.5 km long, the Nevsky Perspective, the main street of the city, stretches between the Admiralty and the Holy Trinity Lavra-Alexander-Nevsky. It is the real backbone of St. Petersburg. Conceived by Peter the Great, its layout was developed and laid out as early as 1712. A walk along the Nevsky River shows the diversity of St. Petersburg's cultural life: museums, theatres, concert halls and cinemas, libraries and numerous art galleries line up here. The Nevsky Prospect, which was the road leading to Moscow, developed rapidly as early as 1720. Even today, walking the Nevsky Prospect, "the princess of our capital", is a journey through time and art that you can make in 2.5 hours, punctuated by canals and bridges.

Behind the n° 24  by the Malaya Konyushchennaya street, totally restored and transformed into a pedestrian zone, a statue of Gogol, very successful, sadly looks at the eternal movement of the heroes of a novel never written.

Clad in granite, with large showcases and bronze decorations, the House of the Book (also known as the Singer Company building) at the intersection of Nevsky Prospect and the Griboedov Canal Quay, houses the offices and headquarters of the famous social network VKontake (also known as the Russian Facebook). This sublime modernist building is one of the emblematic buildings of the Nevsky Prospect and the city, one of the favorites of the premises. It also houses the city's largest bookstore, Dom Knigi (the House of Books) with its huge shelves, a true invitation to daydream and read. Why not sit comfortably on a sofa in the Café Zinger on the ^2nd floor, with a cup of tea and a breathtaking view of Notre-Dame-de-Kazan Cathedral? For the anecdote, the globe on top of the building had no other purpose than to circumvent a law according to which no building should exceed the height of the Winter Palace. The ensemble, grandiose or disproportionate, depending on which side you look at, of Notre-Dame-de-Kazan Cathedral is on the other side. On the canal, the neo-Russian style of Notre-Dame-sur-le-Sang-Versé is reflected in the water. Spanning the canal, the Kazanski Bridge is the third largest in the city. The Catholic Church of Saint Catherine built in 1783  : transition between classicism and baroque.

Built on the other side of the Nevski perspective, the pentagonal clock tower was built in 1804 for the municipal Duma. At  48, the Passage is one of the oldest and one of the city's department stores. Here were tested several innovations techniques : the first elevator and the first pipe! On the right side of the avenue, at  35, the department store Gostiny Dvor (the hotel business) was built in 1761-1785. Almost a century before the creation of the Bon Marché in Paris, this shopping mall was truly revolutionary and marked an important evolution in the history of urban retailing.

On the square now called Ostrovsky Square stands the Monument to Catherine II with its two-storey composition. Behind the monument, at the end of the square, one can see the facade of the Pushkin dramatic theatre with its white colonnade and the Apollo chariot above it. At the corner of the Fontanka Quay and Nevsky Prospect is the Anitchkov Palace. Le palais was presented by Empress Elizabeth Petrovna, daughter of Peter the Great, as a gift to her favourite and morganatic husband Count Razumovsky, a singer of peasant and Ukrainian origin. Placed at the corners of the bridge, the four horse tamers form a group of baroque-inspired male nudes. Similar sculptural groups were sent to Berlin to symbolize the friendship between the two capitals. At ^{XVIIIe siècle,} the Fontanka traced the border of the city whose gate was near the Anitchkov Bridge. À  The Nevsky perspective was largely built here during the 19th and early 20th centuries.

The Nevsky perspective continues beyond the square and forms a bend because the artery was built starting from both ends at the same time, but along different axes. The perspective ends at Alexander Nevsky Square. La partie south of the square is bordered by the Holy Trinity Alexander Nevsky Lavra. Starting from the Admiralty, a symbol of Russian maritime and military excellence, the promenade ends in front of one of the spiritual beacons of Russian Orthodoxy. You are now almost a St. Petersburger!

Practical: length 4.5 km, walking time 2.5 hours (without stops!).