Nevsky Prospect

Stand still for a moment and listen. Tyres hiss on wet asphalt. A trolleybus hums past on its overhead wires. Footsteps ring on granite kerbs, and somewhere a street musician tunes an accordion. Look west, and at the far end of the avenue a slim golden spire catches whatever light the northern sky allows. You are on Nevsky Prospect, the main street of Saint Petersburg, and very little about it is quiet.

The avenue runs for roughly four and a half kilometres. It begins at the Admiralty, the building under that golden spire, and ends at the Alexander Nevsky Lavra, a monastery on the bank of the Neva River. The street takes its name from that monastery, and the monastery takes its name from Alexander Nevsky. He was a thirteenth-century prince and military leader, later made a saint of the Russian Orthodox Church.

The road was laid out in the early eighteenth century, soon after Peter the Great founded the city on marshland at the mouth of the Neva. At first it was a practical route through forest and swamp, linking the shipyards to the monastery and to the road towards Novgorod. Here is a detail many visitors miss. The prospect is not perfectly straight. It runs dead straight from the Admiralty to Uprising Square, then it bends, and the stretch beyond is known locally as Old Nevsky.

As you walk, you cross water three times. First comes the Moika River, then the Griboyedov Canal, and then the Fontanka. Each crossing opens a long view sideways, along embankments lined with pastel facades in yellow, green and pink. Saint Petersburg is a city of islands and canals, and these bridges remind you of that. Pause on each one. The air changes, it feels cooler and damper, and it carries the faint smell of river water.

Near the Moika crossing stands the Stroganov Palace, its facade painted in a soft pink and white. It was designed by Bartolomeo Rastrelli, the Italian-born architect who also created the Winter Palace. Rastrelli worked in a lavish Baroque style. That style uses curves, columns and heavy decoration to impress the eye. On the opposite corner sits the Literary Café. Tradition holds that Alexander Pushkin, Russia's most beloved poet, stopped here in 1837 before the duel that killed him.

Further along, the avenue suddenly opens into a wide half-circle of stone columns. This is Kazan Cathedral, designed by the architect Andrei Voronikhin and completed in the early nineteenth century. The curving colonnade recalls the great colonnade of Saint Peter's Basilica in Rome. After Russia's war against Napoleon, the cathedral became a memorial to that victory. Field Marshal Mikhail Kutuzov, the commander of the Russian army, is buried inside.

Now turn around and look directly across the street. A building topped by a glass globe rises above the corner of the Griboyedov Canal. This is the Singer House, built in the early twentieth century for the American sewing machine company. Its Art Nouveau facade, a style of flowing lines and plant-like ornament, still looks modern today. For many decades it has housed the city's best-known bookshop, Dom Knigi, which means House of Books.

Stand on the canal bridge beside the Singer House and look down the water. At the end of the canal rise the bright, onion-shaped domes of the Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood. It was built on the spot where Emperor Alexander the Second was fatally wounded by revolutionaries in 1881. From this bridge, the church appears framed between rows of buildings. It is one of the most photographed views in the city.

A little further on, a long arcaded building fills a whole block. This is Gostiny Dvor, a merchant arcade dating from the eighteenth century. For generations, Petersburgers came here to buy cloth, furs and household goods. Notice something unusual along this stretch too. Several churches of different faiths stand close to the avenue: a Catholic church, a Lutheran church, and an Armenian church. Visitors have long called Nevsky a street of tolerance because of them.

The Fontanka crossing brings the Anichkov Bridge and its four bronze sculptures. Each one shows a young man struggling to tame a rearing horse. They are the work of the sculptor Peter Clodt, from the first half of the nineteenth century. Walk around all four. Together they tell a sequence, from the wild horse fighting back to the animal finally brought under control. Locals often stop here to meet friends.

The avenue also carries harder memories. During the Second World War, the city, then called Leningrad, was besieged for nearly nine hundred days. German artillery shelled the streets. On one building on the prospect, a blue painted sign survives from that time. It warns citizens that this side of the street is the most dangerous during shelling. People still leave flowers beneath it.

Writers have always been drawn to this street. In 1835, Nikolai Gogol published a short story called Nevsky Prospect. In it, the avenue appears as a place of illusion, where nothing is quite what it seems, especially by lamplight. Dostoevsky's characters also walk these pavements. Watch the crowd for a minute and you may understand why. Students, office workers, tourists and street performers pass each other in a steady river of faces.

Before you move on, look up. Above the shop windows and the bright signs, the upper floors keep their older faces: stucco garlands, carved window frames, iron balconies. Look back west, and the Admiralty spire still holds the end of the street like a full stop. Wherever you walk next on Nevsky, that spire will help you find your way. Take a breath of the cool river air... and let the avenue carry you along.