First Engineer Bridge

"Chizhyk-Pyzhik" (Russian: Чи́жик-Пы́жик) is a Russian satirical folk song which runs as follows: Чижик-пыжик, где ты был?На Фонтанке водку пил. Выпил рюмку, выпил две – Закружилось в голове. Chizhik-Pyzhik, gdje ty byl? Na fontankje vodku pil. Vypil rjumku, vypil dvje – Zakruzhilosj v golovje. Chizhik-Pyzhik, where've you been? Drank vodka on the Fontanka. Took a shot, took another – Got dizzy. The origin of the song in unclear. According to one urban legend, the rhyme refers to the students of the Imperial School of Jurisprudence, who frequented a pub belonging to the merchant Nefedov on the Fontanka Quay in Saint Petersburg. The school was founded by Duke Peter of Oldenburg in the nearby house #6. The students of the college wore uniforms with yellow and green colors, which resembled the colors of the bird called the siskin (Russian: чиж, chizh; hypocoristic: Russian: чижик, chizhik), and hats from fur of young reindeer (Russian: пыжик, pyzhik). Because of that, they were nicknamed Chizhiks-Pyzhiks. Its extremely simple melody (mi-do-mi-do-fa-mi-RE, sol-sol-sol-(la-ti)-do-do-DO) is suitable for teaching small children to play piano (with a suitable "nursery" lyrics).Several Russian classical composers, including Sergey Prokofyev, Isaak Dunaevsky and Rimsky-Korsakov, were inspired with Chizhik.

Panteleymonovsky Bridge (Russian: Пантелеймо́новский мост) is a bridge across the Fontanka River in Saint Petersburg, Russia. The bridge was erected in 1823 and was named after Panteleymonovskaya Street (now Pestelya Street), which in turn was named after the nearby Church of St. Panteleimon (Pantaleon).From 1915 until 1923 it was known as "Gangutskiy Bridge". In 1923 it was renamed as "Pestel Bridge" after Decembrist Pavel Pestel. In 1991 the original name was reinstated. The bridge is located at the confluence of the Moika River and the Fontanka. It is 43 meters long and 23.7 meters wide.

The Summer Palace (Russian: Ле́тний дворе́ц) is either of the two wooden Baroque palaces built by Francesco Bartolomeo Rastrelli on Tsaritsa's Meadow behind the Summer Garden in St. Petersburg. Neither building survives.

Saint Michael's Castle (Russian: Миха́йловский за́мок, Mikhailovsky zamok), also called the Mikhailovsky Castle or the Engineers' Castle (Russian: Инженерный замок, Inzhenerny zamok), is a former royal residence in the historic centre of Saint Petersburg, Russia. Saint Michael's Castle was built as a residence for Emperor Paul I of Russia by architects Vincenzo Brenna and Vasily Bazhenov in 1797–1801. It was named for St Michael the Archangel, patron saint of the royal family. The castle looks different from each side, as the architects used motifs of various architectural styles such as French Classicism, Italian Renaissance and Gothic. Saint Michael's Castle was built to the south of the Summer Garden and replaced the small wooden palace of Empress Elizabeth Petrovna. Afraid of intrigues and assassination plots, Emperor Paul I disliked the Winter Palace where he never felt safe. Due to his personal fascination with medieval knights and his constant fear of assassination, the new royal residence was built like a castle around an octagonal courtyard. The building with rounded corners was surrounded by the waters of the Moika River, the Fontanka River and two specially dug canals (the Church Canal and the Sunday Canal), transforming the castle area into an artificial island which could only be reached by drawbridges. Construction began on 26 February (N.S. 9 March), 1797 and the castle was solemnly consecrated on 8 November 1800, i.e. on St Michael's Day in the Eastern Orthodox calendar, though finishing work on the interior continued until March 1801. In 1800, the bronze equestrian Monument to Peter the Great was set up in front of the castle. This statue had been designed during Peter the Great's lifetime and later, with the casting being completed in 1747 by the architect Bartolomeo Rastrelli. By order of Paul I, the inscription "From Great Grandson to Great Grandfather" was made on the pedestal that is decorated with bas-reliefs depicting scenes of two Russian victories over Sweden during the Great Northern War. Paul I was assassinated only 40 nights after he moved into his newly built castle. He was murdered on 12 March 1801, in his own bedroom, by a group of dismissed officers headed by General Bennigsen. The conspirators forced him to a table, and tried to compel him to sign his abdication. Paul offered some resistance, and one of the assassins struck him with a sword, and he was then strangled and trampled to death. He was succeeded by his son, Emperor Alexander I, who was actually in the palace at the time and was informed of his accession by General Nicholas Zubov, one of the assassins. After Paul's death, the imperial family returned to the Winter Palace; Saint Michael's Castle was abandoned and in 1823 was given to the army's Main Engineering School (later to become the Nikolayevskaya Engineering Academy and now the Military Engineering-Technical University). From then on, the building was known as the Engineers' Castle. Between 1838 and 1843, the Russian writer Fyodor Dostoyevsky studied as a cadet at the Main Engineering School. In the early 1990s, Saint Michael's Castle became a branch of the Russian Museum and now houses its Portrait Gallery, featuring official portraits of the Russian Emperors and Empresses and various dignitaries and celebrities from the late 17th to the early 20th century.

Lower Swan Bridge (Russian: Нижний Лебяжий мост) is a single-span stone bridge in Saint Petersburg crossing the Swan Canal at its junction with the Moyka River. The bridge is one of two which cross the Swan Canal, the other being the Upper Swan Bridge at the canal's northern end, at the confluence with the Neva River. The site of the Lower Swan Bridge was originally occupied by a wooden drawbridge built to the design of Harmen van Bol'es in the 1730s, replaced by a fixed bridge by 1760, and for a time known as the First Tsaritsyn Bridge, after the Tsaritsyn Meadow, now the Field of Mars. The wooden bridge was replaced with a stone one in the 1830s, but the speed of its construction led to significant problems, with the vaulting in danger of collapse. Numerous repairs and renovations have taken place over the bridge's existence, before finally being given a degree of stability after work in the 1920s, which retained the original appearance. Further restoration took place in 2002. Today the bridge links the Field of Mars with the Summer Garden at the Swan Canal's junction with the Moyka, close to the Mikhailovsky Castle.

The Monument to Peter I (Russian: памятник Петру I) is a bronze equestrian monument of Peter the Great in front of the St. Michael's Castle in Saint Petersburg, Russia. In 1716, emperor Peter the Great commissioned the Italian sculptor Carlo Bartolomeo Rastrelli to design an equestrian statue in commemoration of the Russian victories over Sweden in the Great Northern War. Rastrelli worked for eight years with a model of the monument before it was approved by the emperor in 1724. But as the emperor died the following year, work halted and the sculpture's casting was only completed after the sculptor's death, by 1747, only to remain in a local warehouse, and not to be erected until 53 years later. In the meantime, Catherine the Great had ordered another monument in memory of her predecessor Peter the Great - the Bronze Horseman, the most famous statue of Peter the Great in St Petersburg. At the base of the Bronze Horseman, Catherine even linked her name with Peter the Great, an expression of Catherine's attitude toward her predecessor and her view of her own place in the line of great Russian rulers. Catherine, who, having gained her position through a palace coup, had no legal claim to the throne, was anxious to appear as Peter's rightful heir. Only in 1800, during the reign of emperor Paul I, was the Monument to Peter I finally erected. It was placed on a pedestal faced with green, red and white-shaded Finnish marble that is decorated with bas-reliefs depicting scenes of two Russian victories over Sweden during the Great Northern War, the Battle of Poltava and the Battle of Hangö, and also an allegorical composition with trophies. The Russian victories at Poltava and near Hangö, Finland helped Russia become the dominant power in the north of the continent. Peter the Great led his troops to both victories. By order of emperor Paul I, the inscription "To Great Grandfather from Great Grandson" (Прадеду - правнук) was made on the pedestal, a subtle but obvious allusion to the Latin "Petro Primo Catherina Secunda", the dedication by Catherine the Great on the Bronze Horseman. During World War II, the equestrian statue of Peter I was removed from its pedestal and sheltered from the 900-day German siege of the city. In 1945, the statue was restored and returned to its pedestal.

The Saint Petersburg Stieglitz State Academy of Art and Design (Санкт-Петербургская художественно-промышленная академия имени А. Л. Штиглица; abbreviated as СПГХПА) is the oldest school of design in Russia. It occupies a parcel of land immediately to the east of the Summer Garden in Saint Petersburg.

The Rossi Bridge (Russian: Мост Росси) is a cast-iron bridge in the Mikhailovsky Garden in Saint Petersburg. It was designed by architect Carlo Rossi during his redevelopment of the garden in the early 1820s, and built in 1825. Built to span the neck between two large ponds in the east of the garden, the bridge was constructed of cast-iron spans supported by brick abutments lined with limestone. The fencing and pedestals making up the parapet are also of cast iron. Little survives of the original construction details, with the exception of an architectural plan from 1826. The bridge and ponds suffered during the twentieth century, with one of the ponds being filled in, leaving the bridge half buried in earth. Restoration works in the early 2000s restored the ponds and bridge back to their original appearance. Today the bridge is the only one in Saint Petersburg to retain most of its original cast-iron parts.

The Stieglitz Museum of Decorative and Applied Arts ranks among the most significant museums in Saint Petersburg, Russia. The project had its beginnings in 1878 when Baron Alexander von Stieglitz (1814–84), a millionaire philanthropist, donated funds to build a museum for the benefit of students of the Central School of Engineering Design, which had been established by him earlier. The new museum was to accommodate Stieglitz's private collection of rare glassware, porcelains, tapestries, furniture, and tiled stoves. The museum's first director, Maximilian Messmacher, based his design upon a similar museum in Vienna. Constructed between 1885 and 1896, the building is an example of the Neo-Renaissance at its most stylistically forceful. The ground floor with arched windows is heavily rusticated and the upper storey is turgid with ornate details and statuary. The central hall is set between two-storey Italianate arcades, while interiors of other halls are styled so as to conform with items exhibited therein. A room patterned after the Terem Palace particularly stands out as "an opulent knockout", in the words of Tom Masters of the Lonely Planet. Out of some 30,000 items stored in the museum at the time of the Russian Revolution of 1917, the Communist authorities handed over the most precious exhibits to the Hermitage Museum. The Stieglitz Museum continued as a branch of the Hermitage until 1926, when it was abolished, only to be restored three years later as a separate institution. During the Soviet years luxurious interiors fell into disrepair, with one hall used as a gym, its walls painted over. It was not until the fall of the Soviet Union that slow and painstaking restoration began.

The Rossi Pavilion (Russian: Павильон Росси) is a pavilion on the bank of the Moyka River in the Mikhailovsky Garden in Saint Petersburg. It was designed by architect Carlo Rossi in the early 1820s and built in 1825 during his redevelopment of the garden. The site now occupied by the pavilion was previously the location of one of the city's early imperial palaces, the Golden Mansion of Peter the Great's wife, Empress Catherine. The palace was demolished on the orders of Catherine the Great in 1768, and was only redeveloped in the early 1820s as part of the construction of the Mikhailovsky Palace complex. As part of the new ensemble, the gardens between the palace and the Moyka River were laid out in the style of an English landscape garden. The pavilion, designed by Rossi in the Neoclassical style, was built to provide an area for pleasure and refreshment overlooking the river, with a pier where boats could moor. The pavilion survived the Soviet period and was part of the large-scale restoration of the garden in the early 2000s. As part of this work, a bust of Carlo Rossi was placed in the pavilion.

The Imperial School of Jurisprudence (Russian: Императорское училище правоведения) was, along with the Page Corps, a school for boys in Saint Petersburg, the capital of the Russian Empire. The school for would-be imperial administrators was founded by Duke Peter of Oldenburg in 1835. The classes were accommodated in six buildings along the Fontanka Quay. The premises were renovated in 1893–95 and 1909–10, when the main building acquired its cupola. After the October Revolution of 1917, the school was disbanded, but its memory survives in the nursery rhyme about Chizhik-Pyzhik. Among the instructors were lawyers of Imperial Russia, such as Anatoly Koni and Włodzimierz Spasowicz. Boys studied in the school for six or seven years. The graduates of the School of Jurisprudence include Ivan Aksakov, Aleksey Apukhtin, Konstantin Pobedonostsev, Alexander Serov, Vladimir Stasov, Vladimir Dmitrievich Nabokov, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky and his younger brother Modest Ilyich Tchaikovsky.

The Neva Yacht Club (Yacht-club Neva or simply Club Neva) is a sailing club located in Saint Petersburg, Russia, close to the Neva River. It was founded in 1718 and was re-established as a club in 1958. It claims to be the first and oldest yacht club in Russia and even in the world, though this is challenged by the Royal Cork Yacht Club in Ireland.