Narva Triumphal Arch

Listen for a moment. Trams grind past on the rails, buses sigh at their stops, and people hurry out of the metro. Above all of this, six horses rear into the sky, pulling a chariot that seems ready to leave the ground. Their bodies have weathered to a soft green-black. Below them, a great arch stands in the middle of the square, calm and heavy, while the traffic moves around it like water around a stone.

This is the Narva Triumphal Arch, often called the Narva Gate. It stands on what is today Stachek Square, in the southwest of Saint Petersburg. The name comes from the old road that left the city here and ran west toward the town of Narva, in what is now Estonia. For travellers in the early nineteenth century, this spot marked the edge of the capital. Passing through meant you had arrived.

The arch was born from a homecoming. In 1814, Russian troops returned from Europe after the long wars against Napoleon. The Imperial Guard had fought across the continent and marched into Paris. The city wanted to greet them in style, and quickly. So the architect Giacomo Quarenghi, an Italian who shaped much of classical Saint Petersburg, designed a first arch on this road. It was built fast, mostly from wood and plaster.

That speed came at a price. A temporary arch cannot survive many winters on the Baltic coast. Within a few years the wood and plaster were decaying. By the 1820s, the city decided that the victory deserved something permanent. The new arch would stand a short distance from the original, and it would be built to last. The commission went to Vasily Stasov, one of the leading Russian architects of his generation.

Here is the first surprise. Look closely at the surface of the arch. It looks like stone, but much of what you see is metal. Stasov built the core from brick, and then covered it with sheets of copper. At the time, this was an unusual and bold choice for a structure of this size. Copper was durable, it could be shaped into fine detail, and it gave the monument a richer colour. Work began in the late 1820s, and the new arch was completed in 1834.

Now raise your eyes to the top. The figure in the chariot is Glory, a winged goddess of victory, holding a wreath. The six horses pulling her were modelled by Peter Klodt, a sculptor who became famous for his horses. If you have walked along Nevsky Prospect, you may have seen his horse tamers on the Anichkov Bridge. Glory herself was the work of Stepan Pimenov. Together, they turned the roof of the arch into a scene in motion.

Lower down, between the columns, stand tall warriors in armour. They are not Roman soldiers, as you might expect on a classical arch. They are dressed as ancient Russian knights, with helmets, shields and long mail. The sculptors, including Vasily Demut-Malinovsky and Pimenov, used this choice on purpose. The message was simple: the victory over Napoleon belonged to a long Russian tradition of defending the homeland.

Along the upper part of the arch, you will see lettering. These inscriptions list the regiments of the Guard and the battles they fought. Among them is Borodino, the brutal battle near Moscow in 1812. Other names point west, to the campaigns that followed in Germany and France. For the soldiers who once marched through here, these were not abstract words. They were places where friends had died.

The second surprise belongs to a much darker day. On 9 January 1905, thousands of workers from the factories in this district walked toward the Winter Palace. They carried icons and a petition to the Tsar, asking for better conditions. Near this arch, soldiers opened fire on one of the columns. The day became known as Bloody Sunday. Later, the square was renamed Stachek Square, which means the Square of Strikes, in memory of the workers' movement.

The arch also lived through the Second World War. During the Siege of Leningrad, the front line came close to this part of the city. The monument was hit and damaged by shelling and bombing. After the war, restorers worked to repair the copper skin and the sculptures. So the arch you see today carries layers of history: the craft of the 1830s, and the careful repairs of the postwar years.

It is easy to forget that an arch can have an inside. This one does. The interior rooms have been used as exhibition space, connected to the city's museum of urban sculpture. Displays have focused on military history and the story of the arch itself. If the doors are open during your visit, it is worth stepping in. Climbing up offers a view of the square from among the warriors and columns.

Take a moment to look around the square as well. Behind you is the Narvskaya metro station, decorated in the grand style of the Soviet period. To the south and west lie the industrial districts that grew up in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. This was a working neighbourhood, full of factories and the families who worked in them. The arch has watched the area change from a city edge into a busy part of the city.

So, before you walk on, look up once more. Notice how the green of the copper changes as the light moves across it. Notice the stillness of the stone warriors against the noise of the trams. This arch was made to welcome soldiers home. Today it welcomes commuters, schoolchildren and travellers like you. As you leave, you pass the same spot where people have entered the city for two centuries.