From the Yelagin and Kamenyy Islands to the north, along the broad River Neva to the Palace Embankment and by winding waterways to the River Fontanka to the south, St Petersburg, like Venice, is a city of elegant palaces and elaborate churches on a network of waterways.
On the Palace Embankment, the Hermitage, the statue of the Bronze Horseman and the Admiralty look out over the Neva to the Peter and Paul Fortress and the bridges to Vasilevsky Ostrov or Petrogradskaya. Behind the Bronze Horseman, the magnificent gold dome of St Isaac’s Cathedral towers over the classical terraces around it. Close by, the Nevsky prospekt runs all the way from the Admiralty through Gostiny dvor to the River Fontanka. From Nevsky prospekt, the Church on Spilled Blood, the Russian Museum and the Kazan Cathedral are all with easy walking distance along the Griboedova Canal, where Dostoevsky set Crime and Punishment (1866). |