Interesting facts about St. Petersburg
St. Petersburg is a young city, it is only 300 years old, but among the largest cities in Europe it is considered one of the oldest.
1. Buildings erected in St. Petersburg before 1917 have been almost completely preserved.
Now there are about 18 thousand of them. From the Obvodny Canal to the Neva and from the Alexander Nevsky Lavra to the port of St. Petersburg looks almost the same as it did before 1917. No city in Europe or America has so many preserved old buildings. It’s not for nothing that St. Petersburg is called an “open-air museum.” In addition, here you can simultaneously see buildings of such different architectural styles as classicism, eclecticism and modernism. 2. The length of the Neva River is only 74 km, but it flows through an area slightly smaller than the territory of Italy.
The Neva delta includes lakes Ladoga, Onega, Saimaa, Ilmen, as well as the rivers Svir, Volkhov and Vuoksa. There is only one other similar water system in the world - the Great Lakes in North America. The main river of St. Petersburg, the Neva, carries more water than the Don and Dnieper combined. 3. In St. Petersburg there is the tallest cathedral in Russia - the Peter and Paul Cathedral, here is the tomb of the Romanovs.
The height of its bell tower with a gilded spire crowned with the figure of a flying angel is 122.5 meters. 4. The sculptures of horse tamers on the Anichkov Bridge, which were invented by the favorite of Nicholas I, Baron Peter Klodt, caused such delight that they had to be repeated for the royal palace in Berlin, the Neapolitan royal palace, the Belvedere in Peterhof and the Kuzminka equestrian yard in the Moscow region.
5. St. Petersburg has the deepest metro in the world.
The city was built on marshy land, so the subway tunnels had to be built under bedrock. The tunnels of the St. Petersburg metro lie at a depth of approximately 70-80 meters. 6. St. Petersburg is the capital of trams.
The length of tram tracks in the city previously amounted to more than 600 km. This fact is included in the Guinness Book of Records. Until recently, our city was the tram capital of the world. Now Montreal has the championship. 7. Among the urban sculpture of St. Petersburg, angels are most often found.
In total there are more than 3000 of them in the city. In St. Petersburg there are three main angels, three guardians of the city: gold, silver and bronze. The first angel appeared over the city under Catherine II and crowns the spire of the Peter and Paul Cathedral. An angel looks down on the city from above and protects the inhabitants from all evil spirits. The silver angel looks at the city from St. Isaac's Cathedral and blesses the people. The third - a bronze angel is located on Palace Square. Trampling on the snake, he looks from the top of the Alexander Column and observes whether the city needs help. 8. The “Blue” Bridge in St. Petersburg, spanning the Moika River, is the widest bridge in the city and one of the widest in the world.
Its width is 97.3 meters. Due to its record width, it is almost equal to the width of St. Isaac's Square. Another interesting fact is that the width of the crossing is almost three times its length. The name “Blue” comes from its original appearance: previously the bridge was wooden and painted bright blue. In the 19th century, the crossing was rebuilt in stone, but the bridge has retained its color and name to this day. 9. One of the most beautiful suburbs of St. Petersburg is Peterhof with its numerous fountains.
Today there are 173 fountains and 3 cascades in Peterhof. This ensemble was recognized as a UNESCO world cultural heritage. In the 1720s, Peter I noticed a natural feature of these places and decided to use it to decorate the Petrodvorets park. He noticed that water arrives here naturally from the Ropshinsky Heights along the bed of the Shinkarka River and a whole system of canals, ponds and locks. Peter instructed engineer Vasily Tuvolkov to develop a system of communicating vessels to create an ensemble of fountains. Thus, the fountains of Peterhof became a real engineering miracle; they worked without pumps or complex water pressure structures. This system is still in effect today, only the wooden pipeline has been replaced with cast iron. 10. St. Petersburg is called the “Venice of the North” because the water surface occupies about 10% of the city’s total area.
According to this indicator, St. Petersburg ranks first among Russian cities and one of the first places in the world. St. Petersburg is located on 42 islands, has over 300 bridges, including 21 drawbridges and 24 pedestrian ones. 11. The most famous theater in St. Petersburg is the Mariinsky Theater.
It received the name “Mariinsky” on behalf of Empress Maria Alexandrovna, the wife of Alexander II. The theater curtain exactly replicates the Empress's train. 12. Alexander Nevsky is considered the patron saint of St. Petersburg.
Not many people know, but Nevsky Prospekt (the main street of the city) is named after him. There are many places in St. Petersburg associated with the name of the Grand Duke: Alexander Nevsky Square, the monument to Alexander Nevsky, the male Orthodox monastery of the Holy Trinity Alexander Nevsky Lavra, the Alexander Nevsky Square metro station. 13. The Spit of Vasilyevsky Island is a favorite observation deck for St. Petersburg residents and city guests.
From here a magnificent panorama of the city opens. The name of the shooter comes from the sharp arrow-shaped cape, which divides the Neva into two channels. 14. The city on the Neva became the first city in Russia, where the first Russian railway, St. Petersburg - Tsarskoe Selo, was opened in 1837.
15. Not many people know that the botanical garden, located on Aptekarsky Island in St. Petersburg, was conceived as a medical garden for growing medicinal herbs.
They were used for the needs of pharmacies, hospitals and clinics. And in the garden laboratory they produced more than 150 types of medicines. 16. St. Isaac's Cathedral is the largest cathedral in Russia and the fourth largest in the world.
Climbing the 43-meter-high colonnade of the cathedral, you will find yourself on an observation deck, from where the entire city is visible at a glance. Despite the dimensions of the cathedral, during the years of the Great Patriotic War it was never subjected to direct shelling. Only once did a stray shell damage the western corner of the structure. There are suggestions that during the war the Nazis used the highest dome in the city as a target for shooting. Perhaps this is why valuables from other museums, which did not have time to be removed before the blockade, were hidden in the basement of St. Isaac's Cathedral. 17. In 1762, the famous Winter Palace, designed by the architect Rastrelli, was built on Palace Square in the very center of the city.
After construction was completed, mountains of construction waste remained in the square. However, Emperor Peter III found a simple and original way to get rid of unnecessary trash. He ordered an announcement to the city residents that everyone could take whatever they wanted from the square, and absolutely free of charge. A few hours later, the area was completely cleared of debris. 18. Construction of the Smolny Monastery became the longest in the history of the city.
Construction of the structure lasted 87 years. 19. In St. Petersburg in 1719, Peter the Great opened the first public museum in Russia - the Kunstkamera.
Today it is the most famous museum of anthropology and ethnography in all of Russia. The museum's collection includes over a million exhibits that reveal the ethnographic and historical characteristics of the peoples of the world. Since the founding of the Kunstkamera, the museum has housed not only jars of embryos and human bones preserved in alcohol, but also people who lived as “living exhibits.” The most famous was Fyodor Ignatiev, 126 centimeters tall, who lived within the walls of the museum for almost 16 years. On both legs and right hand he had two fingers that resembled claws. And on the left hand there is a pair of the same strange hands. In addition, in 1718, Peter I issued a decree that stated that all freaks (human, animal and bird) should be brought to St. Petersburg, for which the emperor promised a big reward. And those who tried to hide “gifts of nature” from the state faced a fine that was tens of times more than the promised reward. 20. In 1704, the first mechanical clock appeared in St. Petersburg under the spire of the Peter and Paul Cathedral.
Until this moment, city residents used sundials, which today can be seen on mileposts that have been preserved from that time. 21. The Mining Museum of St. Petersburg houses the world's largest piece of malachite.
The stone weighs 1504 kg. It was brought from the Urals and has been in the museum since 1787. 22. The most popular among Neva fish is smelt.
This small fish from the herring order with a cucumber smell is considered one of the brands of the Northern capital. In the first spring months, it rises from the Gulf of Finland to spawn up the Neva. 23. In the suburbs of St. Petersburg, Kronstadt, on July Street, there is the Kronstadt Foot Rod - this is a metal rod with divisions for measuring the water level in the Baltic Sea.
From the zero division of this foot rod, depths and heights are measured throughout Russia. 24. In the Zoological Museum you can see a stuffed animal of the oldest dog in St. Petersburg - Lisette, the favorite of Peter I.
The horse on which the emperor pranced in front of the Swedish regiments in the Battle of Poltava is also on display there - characteristically, his name was also Lisette. It must have been no coincidence that Peter’s luckiest daughter bore this name. 25. In St. Petersburg there is the only equestrian monument in the world that has only two points of support - this is the monument to Nicholas I by Pyotr Klodt on St. Isaac's Square.
26. A monument to a lamplighter was erected on Odesskaya Street in Peski.
It was here that on July 11, 1873, the first experiments in electric street lighting were carried out. For this, the inventor Lodygin received the Lomonosov Prize. As a result of Lodygin's success, St. Petersburg lamplighters lost their jobs, so this is a monument to the victims of technological progress. 27. On Kolomenskaya Street, a cast-iron horse’s head sticks out from the wall of house 45.
This is all that remains of the Yamskaya part, the main cluster of cab drivers' yards in pre-revolutionary St. Petersburg. 28. The inconstancy of St. Petersburg’s weather is explained by a number of reasons: the proximity of the Gulf of Finland, inland waters, which occupy 10% of the city’s territory, as well as many rivers, swamps and lakes.
But the main reason for the frequent change of weather conditions is that St. Petersburg is located close to the “main Arctic front”, where warm air from mid-latitudes and cold air from high latitudes meet and cyclones are born. Often these cyclones cover a large part of the city. 29. It is generally accepted that the White Nights season in St. Petersburg begins on May 25.
By June 21–22, the brightest time comes, when even the brightest stars are almost invisible in the night sky. After the three-day solstice, the length of the day begins to gradually decrease. The end of the St. Petersburg “White Nights” can be considered July 17–18. 30. St. Petersburg has changed several names over its more than three hundred year history.
The first name - "Petersburg" - immediately after its foundation, later it changed into "St. Petersburg", and at first the city was called Petropol, and sometimes Petropolis. In 1914 the city began to be called “Petrograd”. In 1924, after the death of Lenin, the city was renamed Leningrad, and in 1991 the city was returned to its original name - St. Petersburg
Now there are about 18 thousand of them. From the Obvodny Canal to the Neva and from the Alexander Nevsky Lavra to the port of St. Petersburg looks almost the same as it did before 1917. No city in Europe or America has so many preserved old buildings. It’s not for nothing that St. Petersburg is called an “open-air museum.” In addition, here you can simultaneously see buildings of such different architectural styles as classicism, eclecticism and modernism. 2. The length of the Neva River is only 74 km, but it flows through an area slightly smaller than the territory of Italy.
The Neva delta includes lakes Ladoga, Onega, Saimaa, Ilmen, as well as the rivers Svir, Volkhov and Vuoksa. There is only one other similar water system in the world - the Great Lakes in North America. The main river of St. Petersburg, the Neva, carries more water than the Don and Dnieper combined. 3. In St. Petersburg there is the tallest cathedral in Russia - the Peter and Paul Cathedral, here is the tomb of the Romanovs.
The height of its bell tower with a gilded spire crowned with the figure of a flying angel is 122.5 meters. 4. The sculptures of horse tamers on the Anichkov Bridge, which were invented by the favorite of Nicholas I, Baron Peter Klodt, caused such delight that they had to be repeated for the royal palace in Berlin, the Neapolitan royal palace, the Belvedere in Peterhof and the Kuzminka equestrian yard in the Moscow region.
5. St. Petersburg has the deepest metro in the world.
The city was built on marshy land, so the subway tunnels had to be built under bedrock. The tunnels of the St. Petersburg metro lie at a depth of approximately 70-80 meters. 6. St. Petersburg is the capital of trams.
The length of tram tracks in the city previously amounted to more than 600 km. This fact is included in the Guinness Book of Records. Until recently, our city was the tram capital of the world. Now Montreal has the championship. 7. Among the urban sculpture of St. Petersburg, angels are most often found.
In total there are more than 3000 of them in the city. In St. Petersburg there are three main angels, three guardians of the city: gold, silver and bronze. The first angel appeared over the city under Catherine II and crowns the spire of the Peter and Paul Cathedral. An angel looks down on the city from above and protects the inhabitants from all evil spirits. The silver angel looks at the city from St. Isaac's Cathedral and blesses the people. The third - a bronze angel is located on Palace Square. Trampling on the snake, he looks from the top of the Alexander Column and observes whether the city needs help. 8. The “Blue” Bridge in St. Petersburg, spanning the Moika River, is the widest bridge in the city and one of the widest in the world.
Its width is 97.3 meters. Due to its record width, it is almost equal to the width of St. Isaac's Square. Another interesting fact is that the width of the crossing is almost three times its length. The name “Blue” comes from its original appearance: previously the bridge was wooden and painted bright blue. In the 19th century, the crossing was rebuilt in stone, but the bridge has retained its color and name to this day. 9. One of the most beautiful suburbs of St. Petersburg is Peterhof with its numerous fountains.
Today there are 173 fountains and 3 cascades in Peterhof. This ensemble was recognized as a UNESCO world cultural heritage. In the 1720s, Peter I noticed a natural feature of these places and decided to use it to decorate the Petrodvorets park. He noticed that water arrives here naturally from the Ropshinsky Heights along the bed of the Shinkarka River and a whole system of canals, ponds and locks. Peter instructed engineer Vasily Tuvolkov to develop a system of communicating vessels to create an ensemble of fountains. Thus, the fountains of Peterhof became a real engineering miracle; they worked without pumps or complex water pressure structures. This system is still in effect today, only the wooden pipeline has been replaced with cast iron. 10. St. Petersburg is called the “Venice of the North” because the water surface occupies about 10% of the city’s total area.
According to this indicator, St. Petersburg ranks first among Russian cities and one of the first places in the world. St. Petersburg is located on 42 islands, has over 300 bridges, including 21 drawbridges and 24 pedestrian ones. 11. The most famous theater in St. Petersburg is the Mariinsky Theater.
It received the name “Mariinsky” on behalf of Empress Maria Alexandrovna, the wife of Alexander II. The theater curtain exactly replicates the Empress's train. 12. Alexander Nevsky is considered the patron saint of St. Petersburg.
Not many people know, but Nevsky Prospekt (the main street of the city) is named after him. There are many places in St. Petersburg associated with the name of the Grand Duke: Alexander Nevsky Square, the monument to Alexander Nevsky, the male Orthodox monastery of the Holy Trinity Alexander Nevsky Lavra, the Alexander Nevsky Square metro station. 13. The Spit of Vasilyevsky Island is a favorite observation deck for St. Petersburg residents and city guests.
From here a magnificent panorama of the city opens. The name of the shooter comes from the sharp arrow-shaped cape, which divides the Neva into two channels. 14. The city on the Neva became the first city in Russia, where the first Russian railway, St. Petersburg - Tsarskoe Selo, was opened in 1837.
15. Not many people know that the botanical garden, located on Aptekarsky Island in St. Petersburg, was conceived as a medical garden for growing medicinal herbs.
They were used for the needs of pharmacies, hospitals and clinics. And in the garden laboratory they produced more than 150 types of medicines. 16. St. Isaac's Cathedral is the largest cathedral in Russia and the fourth largest in the world.
Climbing the 43-meter-high colonnade of the cathedral, you will find yourself on an observation deck, from where the entire city is visible at a glance. Despite the dimensions of the cathedral, during the years of the Great Patriotic War it was never subjected to direct shelling. Only once did a stray shell damage the western corner of the structure. There are suggestions that during the war the Nazis used the highest dome in the city as a target for shooting. Perhaps this is why valuables from other museums, which did not have time to be removed before the blockade, were hidden in the basement of St. Isaac's Cathedral. 17. In 1762, the famous Winter Palace, designed by the architect Rastrelli, was built on Palace Square in the very center of the city.
After construction was completed, mountains of construction waste remained in the square. However, Emperor Peter III found a simple and original way to get rid of unnecessary trash. He ordered an announcement to the city residents that everyone could take whatever they wanted from the square, and absolutely free of charge. A few hours later, the area was completely cleared of debris. 18. Construction of the Smolny Monastery became the longest in the history of the city.
Construction of the structure lasted 87 years. 19. In St. Petersburg in 1719, Peter the Great opened the first public museum in Russia - the Kunstkamera.
Today it is the most famous museum of anthropology and ethnography in all of Russia. The museum's collection includes over a million exhibits that reveal the ethnographic and historical characteristics of the peoples of the world. Since the founding of the Kunstkamera, the museum has housed not only jars of embryos and human bones preserved in alcohol, but also people who lived as “living exhibits.” The most famous was Fyodor Ignatiev, 126 centimeters tall, who lived within the walls of the museum for almost 16 years. On both legs and right hand he had two fingers that resembled claws. And on the left hand there is a pair of the same strange hands. In addition, in 1718, Peter I issued a decree that stated that all freaks (human, animal and bird) should be brought to St. Petersburg, for which the emperor promised a big reward. And those who tried to hide “gifts of nature” from the state faced a fine that was tens of times more than the promised reward. 20. In 1704, the first mechanical clock appeared in St. Petersburg under the spire of the Peter and Paul Cathedral.
Until this moment, city residents used sundials, which today can be seen on mileposts that have been preserved from that time. 21. The Mining Museum of St. Petersburg houses the world's largest piece of malachite.
The stone weighs 1504 kg. It was brought from the Urals and has been in the museum since 1787. 22. The most popular among Neva fish is smelt.
This small fish from the herring order with a cucumber smell is considered one of the brands of the Northern capital. In the first spring months, it rises from the Gulf of Finland to spawn up the Neva. 23. In the suburbs of St. Petersburg, Kronstadt, on July Street, there is the Kronstadt Foot Rod - this is a metal rod with divisions for measuring the water level in the Baltic Sea.
From the zero division of this foot rod, depths and heights are measured throughout Russia. 24. In the Zoological Museum you can see a stuffed animal of the oldest dog in St. Petersburg - Lisette, the favorite of Peter I.
The horse on which the emperor pranced in front of the Swedish regiments in the Battle of Poltava is also on display there - characteristically, his name was also Lisette. It must have been no coincidence that Peter’s luckiest daughter bore this name. 25. In St. Petersburg there is the only equestrian monument in the world that has only two points of support - this is the monument to Nicholas I by Pyotr Klodt on St. Isaac's Square.
26. A monument to a lamplighter was erected on Odesskaya Street in Peski.
It was here that on July 11, 1873, the first experiments in electric street lighting were carried out. For this, the inventor Lodygin received the Lomonosov Prize. As a result of Lodygin's success, St. Petersburg lamplighters lost their jobs, so this is a monument to the victims of technological progress. 27. On Kolomenskaya Street, a cast-iron horse’s head sticks out from the wall of house 45.
This is all that remains of the Yamskaya part, the main cluster of cab drivers' yards in pre-revolutionary St. Petersburg. 28. The inconstancy of St. Petersburg’s weather is explained by a number of reasons: the proximity of the Gulf of Finland, inland waters, which occupy 10% of the city’s territory, as well as many rivers, swamps and lakes.
But the main reason for the frequent change of weather conditions is that St. Petersburg is located close to the “main Arctic front”, where warm air from mid-latitudes and cold air from high latitudes meet and cyclones are born. Often these cyclones cover a large part of the city. 29. It is generally accepted that the White Nights season in St. Petersburg begins on May 25.
By June 21–22, the brightest time comes, when even the brightest stars are almost invisible in the night sky. After the three-day solstice, the length of the day begins to gradually decrease. The end of the St. Petersburg “White Nights” can be considered July 17–18. 30. St. Petersburg has changed several names over its more than three hundred year history.
The first name - "Petersburg" - immediately after its foundation, later it changed into "St. Petersburg", and at first the city was called Petropol, and sometimes Petropolis. In 1914 the city began to be called “Petrograd”. In 1924, after the death of Lenin, the city was renamed Leningrad, and in 1991 the city was returned to its original name - St. Petersburg