Sadovaya Street

The Vorontsov Palace (Russian: Воронцо́вский дворе́ц) is a Baroque palace compound which occupies a large parcel of land located between Sadovaya Street and the Fontanka River in Saint Petersburg, Russia. The palace of 50 rooms was built at enormous expense by Francesco Bartolomeo Rastrelli for Count Mikhail Illarionovich Vorontsov, Empress Elizabeth's chancellor and maternal relative by marriage. The palace took eight years to build, starting in 1749. After his niece Elizaveta Vorontsova fell from grace, Vorontsov was effectively exiled from the court and sold his main residence to the crown. Paul I of Russia gave the palace to the Knights Hospitaller, of which he was Grand Master. Another Italian architect working in Russia, Giacomo Quarenghi, was then asked to modernise the palace. In 1798–1800, Quarenghi added a Catholic chapel to serve exiled French aristocrats who resided in the Russian capital at the turn of the 19th century (see Russian tradition of the Knights Hospitaller for details). Since 1810, the Vorontsov Palace has housed a succession of exclusive military schools, including the famous Page Corps (1810–1918) and the Suvorov Military School (1955–present). The palace is screened from Sadovaya Street by an elaborate cast iron grille, and it is separated from the Fontanka Embankment by a large garden. The Chapel of the Order of Malta went through extensive restoration in 2003 and is currently used for organ recitals.

Saint Petersburg City Duma was established in 1785 in the course of Catherine the Great's municipal reform. Emperor Paul replaced it by the so-called Ratusha, but his son, Alexander I, had the Duma restored four years later. The next emperor, Nicholas I, expanded the institution from six to twelve members in 1846. Alexander II of Russia reorganized it once again during the Zemstvo reform of the 1870s. In September 1918 the Duma was abolished and its functions devolved on the Petrograd Soviet. The Neoclassical headquarters of the Duma were erected on the main city avenue, Nevsky Prospekt, between 1784 and 1787. The famous Italianate tower was added in 1799–1804 to a design by Giacomo Ferrari. In 1847–52, the edifice was rebuilt in the Neo-Renaissance style, favoured by Nicholas I. Two more floors were added to the building in 1913–14. A spacious central hall of the City Duma was frequently let to host high-profile social events. The structure is located at the corner of the avenue and Dumskaya Street, opposite the Merchant Court and Grand Hotel Europe. Its distinctive tower, formerly used for fire observation, can still be seen the whole length of Nevsky Prospekt after the crossing with Fontanka River. During the Soviet years, the Smolny Institute effectively functioned as the Saint Petersburg City Hall. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the Legislative Assembly made the Mariinsky Palace its headquarters.

Great Gostiny Dvor (Russian: Большой Гостиный Двор) is a vast department store on Nevsky Avenue in St Petersburg. This Gostiny Dvor is not only the city's oldest shopping centre, but also one of the first shopping arcades in the world. Sprawling at the intersection of Nevsky Prospekt and Sadovaya Street for over one kilometer and embracing the area of 53,000 m2 (570,000 sq ft), the indoor complex of more than 100 shops took twenty-eight years to construct. Building works commenced in 1757 to an elaborate design by Bartolomeo Rastrelli, but that subsequently was discarded in favour of a less expensive and more functional Neoclassical design submitted by Jean-Baptiste Vallin de la Mothe (1729–1800). Throughout the following century, Gostiny Dvor was continuously augmented, resulting in ten indoor streets and as many as 178 shops by the 20th century. By that time, the Gostiny Dvor had lost its popularity to the more fashionable Passage and New Passage, situated on the Nevsky Prospekt nearby. During the post-World War II reconstructions, its inner walls were demolished and a huge shopping mall came into being. This massive 18th-century structure received a face-lift and entered the 21st century as one of the most fashionable shopping centres in Eastern Europe. A nearby station of Saint Petersburg Metro takes its name from Gostiny Dvor.

Apraksin Yard (also Apraxin Dvor; Russian: Апраксин Двор) is a 14 hectares (35 acres) market and retail block in Saint Petersburg, Russia, currently under a massive long-term renovation project. The buildings of Apraksin Dvor nestle between Sadovaya Street and the Fontanka River, just southwest of the Alexandrinsky Theatre. The first market on the spot originated in the mid-18th century, deriving its name from Count Apraksin who owned the plot. After a merchant named Shchukin purchased a portion of it, that part became known as Shchukin Dvor. The market buildings were wooden and burnt to the ground in 1782. In 1863, a new department store was opened on the spot. It was built to a design by Geronimo Corsini. Over the next decade, more than 45 shops were constructed in the vicinity. In 1913, Apraksin Dvor contained more than 500 shops. A further 270 small wholesale enterprises were located on the grounds of Shchukin Dvor. After the Russian Revolution of 1917, most buildings of Apraksin Dvor were given over to use as depots and warehouses. By the beginning of the 21st century, Apraksin Dvor was a large city of block of small, downmarket shops facing the street with an open-air market - mostly clothing and accessories - on the inside: an enormous downmarket retail area in the middle of the ever more upscale city center. A long-term renovation plan was instituted; the market stalls were removed in 2008-9 to the Grazhdansky Rynok market (see article on Russian Wikipedia) on the periphery of the city. There are plans to turn the area into modern, pleasant retail, office, residential, hotel and cultural space. Wilkinson Eyre Architects and Foster and Partners are the lead architectural firms.

Municipal Okrug 78 (Russian: муниципа́льный о́круг № 78) is a municipal okrug of Tsentralny District of the federal city of St. Petersburg, Russia. Population: 11,186 (2010 Census); 13,508 (2002 Census).The okrug borders Nevsky Avenue in the northeast, the Fontanka River in the south, and Gorokhovaya Street in the west. Places of interest include the Kazan Cathedral, the Merchant Court, the Apraksin Dvor, the Alexandrinsky Theatre, and the Saint Petersburg City Duma.

Swedish overseas colonies (Swedish: Svenska utomeuropeiska kolonier) consisted of the overseas colonies controlled by Sweden. Sweden possessed overseas colonies from 1638 to 1663, in 1733 and from 1784 to 1878. Sweden possessed five colonies, four of which were short lived. The colonies spanned three continents: Africa, Asia and North America.

The Principality of Murom was a medieval Rus' lordship based on the city of Murom, now in Vladimir Oblast, Russia. Murom lay in an area that was strongly Finnic and for much of its medieval history, located in the homeland of the Muromians. It appears to have been an important Finnic settlement in the ninth-century, with an archaeologically noticeable Scandinavian presence from the tenth-century, as evidenced by Frankish swords, a tortoiseshell brooch and a sword chape.The Primary Chronicle alleges that Murom came under Rus' control in the eighth-century. Gleb Vladimirovich, son of Vladimir the Great, ruled the principality in the early eleventh-century. Murom was part of the territory of the Principality of Chernigov in the late eleventh-century, controlled by the Sviatoslavichi clan, the descendants of Iaroslav the Wise; probably it was retained by Vsevolod Iaroslavich even after this Prince of Chernigov became Grand Prince in 1076.Oleg Sviatoslavich, grandson of Iaroslav and Prince of Chernigov, ruled Murom through a posadnik in the early 1090s, and it was recognised as Oleg's sphere of influence at the Liubech Conference of 1097. Here Oleg's brother Davyd was made co-ruler of Chernigov, and Oleg's lands were parcelled out between Oleg, Davyd and their brother Iaroslav; the latter obtained Murom with Ryazan.Murom appears to have been destroyed or at least devastated by the Mongol Invasion of Rus' in 1237-8. Khan Batu came to the frontier of Ryazan in the winter of 1237, and demanded tribute from the princes of Ryazan, Murom and Pronsk. This was rejected, and devastation of these lands followed. After 1239, the princes of Murom disappear for nearly a century.In 1392 Vasily Dmitr'evich, Prince of Moscow and Grand Prince of Vladimir, obtained a patent from Khan Tokhtamysh authorising the annexation of the Murom principality, along with the principalities of Nizhni Novgorod and Gorodets.

The Principality of Novgorod-Seversk was a medieval Rus' principality centered on the town now called Novhorod-Siverskyi. The principality was aligned to the Principality of Chernigov. It may have been created in 1139, the date of one modern authority. In 1185, a large Rus'ian campaign against the Polovtsy ended in defeat for Prince Igor, famously recorded in The Tale of Igor's Campaign. The principality was taken by the principality of Briansk after the Mongol invasions, and then by the Lithuanians when the power of the Golden Horde began to decline. In the fifteenth-century the principality was given to Prince Ivan of Mozhaisk when he fled from Grand Prince Vasily II.

The Road of Life (Доро́га жи́зни, doroga zhizni) was the set of ice road transport routes across Lake Ladoga to Leningrad during the Second World War. They were the only Soviet winter surface routes into the city while it was besieged by the German Army Group North under Feldmarschall Wilhelm Ritter von Leeb.The routes operated in the winters of 1941-1942 and 1942-1943. Construction and operation were performed under German artillery and aerial bombardment. In January 1943 the Soviet's Operation Iskra broke the encirclement, and the ice roads were used in conjunction with land routes for the remainder of the winter.The routes carried supplies necessary to sustain life and resistance inside the Leningrad pocket, and evacuated non-combatants, wounded, and industrial equipment. Over 1.3 million people, primarily women and children, were evacuated over the roads during the siege. The Road of Life is now a World Heritage Site.

Nevsky Prospekt (Russian: Не́вский проспе́кт) is a station on the Moskovsko-Petrogradskaya Line of the Saint Petersburg Metro. It serves the street of the same name, one of the largest in the city. The station was opened on July 1, 1963. While the station itself was designed by Mayofis and Maximov, the interior was designed by Getskin, Shuvalova and Andreyev. The station has two sets of exits on Mikhailovskya Street. The station is linked to Gostiny Dvor via a transfer corridor that descends to the middle of the platform and a set of escalators at the platform's northern end. Nevsky Prospekt is considered one of the most congested stations in the entire Saint Petersburg Metro.Nevsky Prospekt is one of the more exotic locations used in Mornington Crescent, a game played in the BBC Radio 4 show I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue.

The Belmond Grand Hotel Europe (Russian: Гранд Отель Европа; known as Hotel Evropeiskaya during the Soviet period), is a five-star hotel on Arts Square in Saint Petersburg, Russia.

The Catholic Church of St Catherine (Russian: Католическая церковь Святой Екатерины) in St. Petersburg is the oldest Catholic church in the Russian Federation, and the only church with the title of basilica (status granted on 23 July 2013). It is located on the Nevsky Prospekt and is a part of the Archdiocese of Moscow headed by Msgr. Paolo Pezzi.