Saint Petersburg

The Admiralty Building is the former headquarters of the Admiralty Board and the Imperial Russian Navy in Central St. Petersburg, Russia and the current headquarters of the Russian Navy.The edifice was rebuilt in the nineteenth century to support the Tsar's maritime ambitions. The original design was a fortified shipyard which was later surrounded by five bastions and further protected by a moat.The Empire Style edifice visible today lining the Admiralty Quay was constructed to Andreyan Zakharov's design between 1806 and 1823. Located at the western end of the Nevsky Prospekt, The Admiralty with its gilded spire topped by a golden weather-vane in the shape of a small sail warship (Korablik), is one of the city's most conspicuous landmarks and the focal point of old St. Petersburg's three main streets - Nevsky Prospect, Gorokhovaya Street, and Voznesensky Avenue - underscoring the importance Peter I placed on Russia's Navy. Until merger and relocation to the town of Pushkin in 1998 the building housed one of the Soviet and Russian naval engineering schools which since 1927 was named after Felix Dzerzhinsky. Vladimir Nabokov, writer and native of St. Petersburg, wrote a short story in May 1933 entitled "The Admiralty Spire."

This park should not be confused with Alexander Park in St. Petersburg and Alexander Garden in Moscow. The Alexander Garden (Александровский сад) lies along the south and west façades of the Russian Admiralty in St. Petersburg, parallel to the Neva River and Admiralty Quay, extending from Palace Square in the east to St. Isaac's Cathedral in the west. The English park is named after Alexander II of Russia who ordered some 52 species of trees to be planted there. It was formerly known as the Admiralty Boulevard, the Admiralty Meadow, and the Labourers Garden. The garden was designed by Luigi Rusca in 1805. William Gould, an English-born gardener, was hired to raze the southern ramparts of the Admiralty Fortress, replacing them with four lime-tree alleys. The moat of the fortress was filled in 1819, making room for additional lanes. The garden was a traditional place for Easter and Maslenitsa revels. Three lanes leading from the Admiralty tower to Nevsky Avenue, Voznesensky Avenue and Gorokhovaya Street were designed by Ivan Fomin in 1923. This arrangement made the Admiralty Tower the focal point of the entire downtown. By contrast with the Summer Garden, the Alexander Garden originally had no statuary. It was not until 1833 that Paolo Triscorni's marble copies of the Farnese Hercules and Farnese Flora appeared. A fountain was installed in front of the Admiralty tower in 1879. The Nikolai Przhevalsky monument and four busts (Mikhail Glinka, by Vladimir Pashchenko, and three by Vasily Kreitan; namely Nikolai Gogol, Mikhail Lermontov and Vasily Zhukovsky) date from the 1890s. Chancellor Gorchakov's statue was added in 1998.

The Lions at the Dvortsovaya pier are two lion sculptures in bronze placed at the Admiralty embankment in Saint Petersburg since 1832. The lions are copies of the late 16th century Italian Medici lions in Florence. The lions are the best known among several Medici lions and other lion sculptures in Saint Petersburg. The sculptures were created by the German craftsman, Johan Gottlieb Prang to designs by sculptor Ivan Prokofiev.

Lobanov-Rostovsky Residence or the Lobanov-Rostovsky Palace is a building at 12 Admiralteysky Avenue in Saint Petersburg, Russia, constructed in 1817-1820 for Prince Alexander Yakovlevich Lobanov-Rostovsky. Today, the building houses a luxury hotel in the Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts chain, under the name of Four Seasons Hotel Lion Palace, referring to the two Medici Lions at the main entrance. It is not to be confused with the Lobanov-Rostovsky House at 43, Myasnitskaya Street, Moscow.

The Admiralty Embankment (Russian: Адмиралтейская набережная (Admiralteyskaya Naberezhnaya)) or Admiralty Quay is a street along the Neva River in Central Saint Petersburg, named after the Admiralty Board. Between 1919 and 1944 the street was known as Roshal Embankment, named after the revolutionary S. G. Roshal. The Admiralty Embankment was constructed in 1763 to 1767, by the engineers V. M. Karlowicz and S. S. Selyavionov. The street has no other buildings than the Admiralty and the Bronze Horseman. The street begins at the Decembrists Square, where the English Embankment becomes the Admiralty Embankment. The street ends at the Palace Bridge, where it becomes the Palace Embankment. The Admiralty Embankment is home to the Admiralty building and the Bronze Horseman, it has also a wonderful view of the Neva and the Saint Petersburg State University is just across the Neva.

The gardens of the Winter Palace, St Petersburg, are little known, as the great imperial palace of the Romanovs was never intended to have gardens. As the Tsar's principal residence, situated in the capital, it was very much intended as a symbol of power rather than a place of relaxation and pleasure. Bordered by the River Neva on its northern side and Palace Square on its southern, the Winter Palace was devoid of space for gardens; however, the last two empresses of Russia each created gardens from previously paved areas. In 1885, Tsaritsa Maria Feodorovna, wife of Alexander III, had a garden created in the principal courtyard, an area which had previously been paved. This was designed in a formal rectangular shape, reflecting the shape of the courtyard which contained it. The lawned garden was planted with trees and shrubs, and surrounded by a cobbled carriage drive which led from the palace's principal arched entrance on Palace Square to the various doors giving access to the palace's interior from the courtyard. The second garden was created in 1896 for Tsaritsa Alexandra Feodorovna, wife of the last Tsar, Nicholas II, who lived briefly at the palace at the turn of the 20th century. She found the public access to all the exterior facades of the palace disconcerting, and disliked the way that the members of the public would stare at the windows of the private apartments in the western part of the palace. She also wished for an area where her children could play in privacy and seclusion, as a result she had a garden created on the parade ground beneath her windows. This was surrounded by a high wall topped with railings. The garden was created based on a project by landscape architect Georg Kuphaldt, the director of the Riga city gardens and parks.

Alexander Military Law Academy (Russian: Александровская военно-юридическая академия) (1867–1917) was an educational institution in Russian Empire that provided military law education for officers of Russian Army and Fleet. It was established in 1867 and named after his founder, Emperor Alexander II of Russia in 1908. The Academy was situated in St. Petersburg by 96 Moika Embankment, along with many other institutions of military education. Since 1878 it was reformed into a 3-year higher educational institution, with admittance to any of the three classes, depending on prior education of the admitted. Since 1880 officers from Serbian and Bulgarian Armies were admitted. About 1,000 officers graduated from the academy, as well as a small number or civil officials (which were admitted until 1882).

Palace Bridge (Russian: Дворцо́вый мост, Dvortsoviy Most), a road- and foot-traffic bascule bridge, spans the Neva River in Saint Petersburg between Palace Square and Vasilievsky Island. Like every other Neva bridge (except for Big Obukhovsky Bridge), it is drawn by night, making foot travel between various parts of the city virtually impossible. It was built by the French firm Société de Construction des Batignolles between 1912 and 1916. The total length of Palace Bridge is 260.1 metres, width is 27.8 metres. It is actually composed of five spans, the southernmost joining Palace Embankment between the Winter Palace and the Admiralty and leading to Palace Square.

The Angleterre Hotel (Russian: Англетер) is a modern, luxury business-class hotel on Voznesensky Prospekt at Saint Isaac's Square in Saint Petersburg, Russia. The hotel opened in 1991, replicating a historic hotel originally opened in 1840 and reconstructed in 1876. The hotel has 192 rooms, including five suites.

Saint Isaac's Cathedral or Isaakievskiy Sobor (Russian: Исаа́киевский Собо́р) is a large architectural landmark cathedral that currently functions as a museum with occasional church services in Saint Petersburg, Russia. It is dedicated to Saint Isaac of Dalmatia, a patron saint of Peter the Great, who had been born on the feast day of that saint. It was originally built as a cathedral but was turned into a museum by the Soviet government in 1931 and has remained a museum ever since, with church services held in a side chapel since the 1990's. In 2017, the Governor of Saint Petersburg offered to transfer the cathedral back to the Russian Orthodox Church, but this was not accomplished due to the protests of St Petersburg citizens opposing the offer.

Hotel Astoria (Russian: гости́ница «Асто́рия») is a five-star hotel in Saint Petersburg, Russia, that first opened in December 1912. It has 213 bedrooms, including 52 suites, and is located on Saint Isaac's Square, next to Saint Isaac's Cathedral and across from the historic Imperial German Embassy. Hotel Astoria, along with its neighboring sister hotel, Angleterre Hotel, is owned and managed by Rocco Forte Hotels and is a member of The Leading Hotels of the World. The hotel underwent a complete refurbishment in 2012.

The Stone of Tmutarakan (Russian: Тмутараканский камень) is a marble slab engraved with the words "In the year 6576 [ A.M., 1068 A.D] the sixth of the Indiction, Prince Gleb measured across the sea on the ice from Tmutarakan to Kerch 14,000 sazhen" («В лето 6576 индикта 6 Глеб князь мерил море по леду от Тмутороканя до Корчева 14000 сажен»). A sazhen, an old Rus unit of length, was equal to seven feet (or corresponded roughly to a fathom); thus the Kerch Straits, according to the stone, were 88,000 feet or 18.5 miles across (that is, from Kerch to Tmutarakan — the straits themselves are only 4.5 miles wide at their narrowest point, but the distance from the site of Tmutarakan to modern-day Kerch is about 15 miles.) The tenth-century Byzantine Emperor Constantine Porphyrogenitus wrote that the straits were the equivalent of 18 miles across, and this might explain why that measurement appears on the stone, although it is unclear if an eleventh-century prince in Rus would have had access to that information; this uncertainty calls the stone's authenticity into question. The Prince Gleb referred to in the inscription was Gleb Svyatoslavich, then prince of Tmutarakan. Gleb was later Prince of Novgorod the Great, where he saved Bishop Fedor's life by chopping a sorcerer in half who led a pagan uprising against the bishop. Gleb was eventually killed fighting pagan Finnic tribes in the northern Novgorodian Lands ("the Zavoloch'e" or "Za Volokom", "the Land beyond the Portages") on May 30, 1079.The stone was discovered on the Taman Peninsula just east of Crimea in 1792 and the inscription was first published in 1794 by Aleksei Musin-Pushkin. The study of the inscription is said to be the first epigraphic study in Russian history. In spite of its importance in the history of Russian epigraphy, a number of scholars have called the stone's provenance into question and consider the stone an eighteenth-century forgery, perhaps done by Romanticists enamored of ancient culture or even as an effort to find precedent for Russian involvement in the Caucasus. The stone is currently housed in the State Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg.