Sadovaya Street

One of the oldest streets in Saint Petersburg runs almost four kilometres from the Field of Mars to Pokrovskaya Square.

A trading street, not a garden one

It took its name from the gardens of the estates it was laid out along in the 1730s, but it stopped being a garden street very quickly: trade pushed everything else out. Along almost its whole length it is built up with commercial buildings: Vallin de la Mothe's Gostiny Dvor, the Apraksin Yard, the largest market in the city, the Nikolsky market, Quarenghi's Assignation Bank.

Covered galleries

The through arcades of these yards work as covered galleries: you can walk for blocks without stepping into the rain, a trick used in Saint Petersburg more often than an outsider would guess.

What lies along it

At its start the street skirts the Mikhailovsky Castle, where Paul I was murdered, then passes the main building of the Public Library on the corner of Nevsky, and touches Sennaya Square and the Yusupov Garden.

The Yusupov Garden

In the nineteenth century one of the country's first public skating rinks was flooded here, the first Russian figure-skating competitions were held, and Nikolai Panin-Kolomenkin, later Russia's first Olympic champion, trained on it.

A tram line survives on the roadway, a rarity in the centre, where the rails were taken up almost everywhere.

Address

St Petersburg, Field of Mars to Pokrovskaya Square

Opening hours

Always open

Prices

Free

On the map