St.Petersburg Canals

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Peter the Great was designing the city as another Amsterdam & Venice with canals instead of streets. Initially, there were only about ten bridges constructed in the city, mainly across ditches and minor creeks. By Peter's plans, in the summer months, the citizens were supposed to move around in boats, and in the winter months when the water froze to move in sledges. However, after Peter's death, new bridges were built, as it was a much easier way of transportation. Temporary ponton bridges were used in the summertime.

The first permanent bridge of bricks and stones across the main branch of the Neva river appeared in 1850.

Today, there are more 342 bridges over canals and rivers of various sizes, styles and constructions, built at different periods. Some of them are small pedestrian bridges, others are huge transport arteries such as almost one kilometer long the Alexander Nevsky Bridge.

The total length of all the city bridges is approximately 16 kilometers (9.9 miles)



Anna our guide hired a boat to take us for an hour along several canals and out into the Neva river.

The tiny Winter Canal connecting the Neva River and the Moyka in the area of the Winter Palace has a well-deserved reputation as one of the most romantic and picturesque spots of the city. This atmosphere is created largely by the two symmetrical stone semicircles of the Hermitage gallery and the Hermitage Bridge. Sandwiched on both sides by the Hermitage buildings, the Winter Canal tunnel leads out to the expanses of the river Neva.



The Hermitage Bridge, the first stone bridge of St. Petersburg, was built from 1763-1766. It was lined with granite slabs, and in 1934 the stone arch bridge was replaced with reinforced concrete, perfectly preserving the architectural shapes and granite cladding. From this bridge Lisa, the heroine of Peter Tchaikovsky's opera Queen of Spades throws herself into the water. The composer changed Pushkin's story inspired by a real suicide that occurred at this site in 1868.

There are two other bridges that cross the Winter Canal - the First and Second Winter Bridges. The first was built in 1783 and has remained unchanged since. The second was built in 1964, but was designed to mirror almost exactly the 18th century design.



Many of the bridges can be quite low and it was funny how the other guests on the virtual tour soon mentioned the word “Duck” as each bridge was approached, before long Anna, much to the her delight was saying ‘Duck everybody’ as we virtually traveled with her in the boat.



Trinity Bridge opened in 1903 to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the founding of St Petersburg, it consists of ten arches and stretches across the widest point of the Neva River.



As we continued our journey Anna explained all of the different palaces and other magnificent buildings along both sides of the canals, too many for me to remember but they certainly were a mix of architecture.

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