Tauride Garden
The Tauride Garden was laid out in 1783-1789 on the estate of Grigory Potemkin behind the Tauride Palace from which it took its name. Potemkin was one of Catherine the Great's favorites (and lover, allegedly), and the Empress gave Potemkin the land and the title of Prince of Tauridia for his services in conquering ancient Tauridia (now the Crimean Peninsula). The Tauride Garden was landscaped in true Romantic style, designed to imitate nature, with ponds and canals and picturesque rolling landscape. Trees and shrubs were brought in especially from England.
Admiralty
The
original Admiralty was one of the first structures to be built in St
Petersburg. It was designed to be a dockyard, where some of the first
ships of Russia's Baltic fleet were built (some with participation of
Tzar Peter himself who was an expert in shipbuilding). The Admiralty
was also fortified to be an extra defense for the newly obtained Neva
delta.
The Admiralty that we can see today was built in 1806-23 by Adrian Zakharov.
He maintained the original plan of the building, but turned it into
a marvelous example of the Russian Empire style, with rows of white
columns, plentiful reliefs and statues. The gilded spire of the Admiralty
(and particularly its weather-vane korablik - "a little ship")
is a famous St. Petersburg landmark. The tower of the building, topped
with the spire,can be clearly seen from three streets: Nevsky, Gorokhovaia
Street and Voznesensky Prospect.
Peterhof Palace and Park Ensemble
Peterhof is the oldest former imperial residence in the outskirts of Saint-Petersburg. It was founded in 1710 by Peter the Great when he started to accommodate the adjacent environs of the new capital. Peter himself sketched the first drafts pointing out the location and the exterior of the main constructions. The area comprises two regular parks: the Upper garden and the Lower garden and seven other landscape-styled gardens. The main feature of the ensemble is the 173 precious fountains placed all over the gardens. That is why Peterhof has gained such poetical names as "the capital of Russian fountains" and "the Russian Versailles".
Nevsky Prospect
Nevsky Prospect is St. Petersburg’s main avenue and one of the best-known streets in Russia. Cutting through the historical center of the city, it runs from the Admiralty to the Moscow Railway Station and then, after a slight kink, to the Alexander Nevsky Monastery. In the very first days of St. Petersburg it was simply the beginning of the road to the ancient city of Novgorod, but it quickly became adorned with beautiful buildings, squares and bridges and became the very center of the bustling, rapidly growing city.
ST. PETERSBURG
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