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Blue Bridge (Saint Petersburg)

Bridges completed in 1818Bridges in Saint PetersburgSaint Isaac's Square
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Depth of Blue Bridge

The Blue Bridge (Russian: Си́ний мост, Siniy most), is a 97.3-metre-wide (319 ft) bridge that spans the Moika River in Saint Petersburg, Russia. The Blue Bridge is the widest bridge in Saint Petersburg and is sometimes claimed to be the widest bridge in the world – a claim, however, that has not been recognized by international reference works, such as the Guinness World Records. The Blue Bridge spans the Moika River and is located in front of the Mariinsky Palace at Saint Isaac's Square in city's historic centre. The first cast iron bridge on the site was designed in 1805 by the architect William Heste, and built in 1818. This bridge was a single-span bridge resting on stone supports, and measured 41 metres across. In 1842–1844, the bridge was widened on its northern side to its present width of 97.3 metres - just as wide as the adjacent Isaac's Square. Soon after the bridge was widened, there were rumours that the new width of the bridge was 99.9 metres instead of the actual 97.3. This rumour even made it into some official booklets and textbooks. Today, most of the Blue Bridge serves as a parking lot. The bridge's name dates from a 19th-century tradition of color-coding the bridges crossing the Moika River. Like other colored bridges, the Blue Bridge got its name from the color of its sides facing the river. Today only four colored bridges survive, the other ones being the Red Bridge, the Green Bridge and the Yellow Bridge respectively. Three of them kept their original names, while Yellow Bridge has been renamed to Pevchesky Bridge.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Blue Bridge (Saint Petersburg) (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors, Images).

Blue Bridge (Saint Petersburg)
Исаакиевская площадь, Saint Petersburg

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N 59.9316 ° E 30.3089 °
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Синий мост

Исаакиевская площадь
190107 Saint Petersburg (Адмиралтейский округ)
Saint Petersburg, Russia
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Saint Isaac's Square
Saint Isaac's Square

Saint Isaac's Square or Isaakiyevskaya Ploshchad (Russian: Исаа́киевская пло́щадь), known as Vorovsky Square (Russian: Площадь Воровского) between 1923 and 1944, in Saint Petersburg, Russia is a major city square sprawling between the Mariinsky Palace and Saint Isaac's Cathedral, which separates it from Senate Square. The square is graced by the equestrian Monument to Nicholas I. The Lobanov-Rostovsky House (1817–20) on the west side of the square was designed by Auguste de Montferrand. It may be described as an Empire style building that has an eight-column portico facing the Admiralty building. The main porch features the twin statues of Medici lions on granite pedestals; they were made famous by Pushkin in his last long poem, The Bronze Horseman. Nearby is Quarenghi's Horse Guards' Riding Hall (1804–07), in part inspired by the Parthenon and flanked by the marble statues of the Dioscuri, by Paolo Triscornia. Opposite the cathedral is the Mariinsky Palace, built in 1829-1844 for Grand Duchess Maria Nikolayevna. Currently the palace houses the Saint Petersburg Legislative Assembly. In front of the palace is the 97-metre-wide Blue Bridge, which used to be the widest in Saint Petersburg. Spanning the Moika River, the bridge is usually perceived as the extension of the square, although in fact it forms a separate square, called Mariyinskaya. To the right from the bridge is so-called Neptune's Scale, with a granite top. This is a stele which marks water levels during major floods. To the east of the cathedral is the six-storey Hotel Astoria, designed by Fyodor Lidval. It opened in 1912 and was one of the most luxurious hotels in the Russian Empire. Adjacent to the Astoria is the hotel Angleterre, which is remembered as the deathplace of poet Sergei Yesenin. The building found at the corner of Malaya Morskaya Street is associated with Fyodor Dostoyevsky, who lived there in 1848-1849. At this period, he published his first work of fiction, White Nights. The Russian Institute of Plant Breeding named after Academician Nikolai Vavilov is located in two neo-Renaissance buildings. The institute has a unique collection of 160,000 cultivated plants, which Vavilov collected while travelling in every continent from 1921 to 1940. After the end of the war, a journal published in London reported that Vavilov's collection was lost during the Siege of Leningrad. However, the report was false: although many starved to death, the institute's staff would not consume a single grain of rice or potato tuber from the collection.One of the last buildings to be erected on the square was the trapezoidal red-granite German Embassy (1911–12), by the architect Peter Behrens. The building is a reference point in the history of Western architecture, as it was the first specimen of Stripped Classicism, a style that enjoyed immense popularity in Stalinist Russia and Nazi Germany.

Alexander Garden (Saint Petersburg)
Alexander Garden (Saint Petersburg)

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.