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Upper Swan Bridge

1768 establishments in the Russian EmpireBridges completed in 1715Bridges completed in 1768Bridges in Saint Petersburg
Verkhny Lebyazhy Bridge
Verkhny Lebyazhy Bridge

Upper Swan Bridge (Russian: Верхний Лебяжий мост) is a single-span stone bridge in Saint Petersburg. It is one of the oldest stone bridges in the city and carries Palace Embankment across the Swan Canal. The preceding bridge on the site was of wooden construction, built in the 1710s over the Lebedinka, a shallow watercourse flowing between the Moyka and Neva Rivers, at the point at which it entered the Neva. With the construction of the Swan Canal replacing the Lebedinka, the bridge continued to operate, until being replaced with a stone bridge in 1768. The bridge was alternately known as the Swan Bridge, the Stone Swan Bridge, and finally the Upper Swan Bridge, distinguishing it from the Lower Swan Bridge at the southern end of the canal at its juncture with the Moyka. Structural faults were identified as early as the mid-nineteenth century, but repairs were only carried out in the 1920s. These left the appearance of the bridge unaltered, and it still retains its original form. It has been designated an object of historical and cultural heritage of federal significance.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Upper Swan Bridge (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors, Images).

Upper Swan Bridge
Kutuzov Embankment, Saint Petersburg

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Latitude Longitude
N 59.947777777778 ° E 30.336388888889 °
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Прачечный мост

Kutuzov Embankment
191187 Saint Petersburg (Литейный округ)
Saint Petersburg, Russia
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Verkhny Lebyazhy Bridge
Verkhny Lebyazhy Bridge
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Field of Mars (Saint Petersburg)
Field of Mars (Saint Petersburg)

The Field of Mars (Russian: Ма́рсово по́ле, tr. Marsovo Polye) is a large square in the centre of Saint Petersburg. Over its long history it has been alternately a meadow, park, pleasure garden, military parade ground, revolutionary pantheon and public meeting place. The space now covered by the Field of Mars was initially an open area of swampy land between the developments around the Admiralty, and the imperial residence in the Summer Garden. It was drained by the digging of canals in the first half of the eighteenth century, and initially served as parkland, hosting a tavern, post office and the royal menagerie. Popular with the nobility, several leading figures of Petrine society established their town houses around the space in the mid eighteenth century. Under Peter the Great it was laid out with paths for walking and riding, and hosted military parades and festivals. During this period, and under Peter's successors it was called the "Empty Meadow" and the "Great Meadow". Empresses Anna and Elizabeth built their Summer Palaces here, and it was redeveloped into a pleasure park with pavilions and walkways for promenading. Theatres were built on the land during this period, and with the imperial patronage, the square became the "Tsaritsyn Meadow". New townhouses and palaces developed along the square's boundaries and across its frontage onto the Neva. During the reigns of Emperor Paul I and his son Alexander I, the square took on more of a martial purpose, with the construction of military monuments in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. In acknowledgement of this, and its role in hosting military reviews and parades, it was renamed the "Field of Mars" in 1805. The square was part of the further development of the area by architect Carlo Rossi in the late 1810s, involving new buildings around the perimeter, and the extension of streets and frontages. During the nineteenth century the Field of Mars alternately hosted large military reviews, and public festivals. Sports and other leisure activities took place into the early twentieth century. After February 1917 the square became the ceremonial burial place of a number of those killed during the February Revolution. Construction of a memorial, the Monument to the Fighters of the Revolution, took place between 1917 and 1919 at the centre of the Field of Mars. The monument became the centre of an early pantheon of those who died in the service of the nascent Soviet state, and burials of some of the dead of the October Revolution and the Russian Civil War, as well as prominent figures in the government, took place between 1917 and 1933. Between 1918 and 1944 the Field of Mars was renamed the "Victims of the Revolution Square". The square was laid out with vegetable gardens to help feed the city during the siege of Leningrad, and also hosted an artillery battery. Restorations took place after the war, including the installation of the first eternal flame in Russia. In the post-Soviet period the Field of Mars has become a popular location for demonstrations and protests.

First Engineer Bridge
First Engineer Bridge

The First Engineer Bridge (Russian: Первый Инженерный мост, Pervy Inzhenerny most) is one of several bridges that span the Moika River in Saint Petersburg, Russia. The bridge is one of a group of four bridges located near the Mars Field, and opposite the main entrance to the Summer Garden, spanning the Moika River, the Fontanka River, and the Swan Canal in the historic center of the city. The First Engineer Bridge is one of the most decorative of Saint Petersburg's more than 500 bridges. The original small wooden bridge, called the Summer Bridge and rumored to have been designed by the architect Bartolomeo Rastrelli, was built in the 1760s. This bridge was replaced with the current cast-iron bridge, in 1824-1825, and renamed the First Engineer Bridge, in 1829, after the nearby Engineers' Castle (originally called St Michael's or Mikhailovsky Castle). Engineer Pierre-Dominique Bazaine (1786-1838) (Пётр Петрович Базен) designed and constructed the bridge in a similar fashion to the Big Stables Bridge (Bolshoy Konyushenny Bridge), a bridge located further west on the Moika River, using pre-fabricated hollow wedges. Bazaine also managed to reduce the use of expensive cast-iron in the bridge's construction to one-third of the total mass of the bridge, by innovatively designing the sidewalks with the use of special bracket supports. The siding is decorated in Doric style by architect Joseph Charlemagne. The beams have a curved and perforated appearance, and the bridge's rectangular orifices are bordered with flat frames, giving the bridge an appearance of lightness and transparency. The bridge's sidewalk tiles were designed as a cornice and are supported by rich ornamental bracket figures. Intricately inscribed plaques with grooves extend from the figures on frieze planes, in the style of Doric triglyph coverings. The triglyphs cover the joints of the side plaques. Cast-iron arches span closely behind. The railings, also designed by Charlemagne, comprise several sections of short pilums, placed between bouquets of decorations and inscriptions of round shields, with bas-relief images of the heads of Medusa, with the Gorgon's snaky locks for hair. In 1994, a small bronze statue of Chizhik-Pyzhik was installed on a ledge in the embankment, opposite the Imperial School of Jurisprudence near the First Engineer Bridge. The statue has since been repeatedly stolen.