Nevsky Prospect () is a main street (high street) located in the federal city of St. Petersburg in Russia. Its name comes from the Alexander Nevsky Lavra, the monastery which stands at the eastern end of the street, and which commemorates the Russian hero Prince Saint Alexander Nevsky (1221–1263). Following his founding of Saint Petersburg in 1703, Tsar Peter I planned the course of the street as the beginning of the road to Novgorod and Moscow. The avenue runs from the Admiralty in the west to the Moscow Railway Station and, after veering slightly southwards at Vosstaniya Square, to the Alexander Nevsky Lavra.
History of the street 18th century Early 18th century. Reign of Peter the Great On September 5, 1704, Admiralty of the Saint Petersburg was laid on the left side of the Neva River. The area adjacent to the fortress began to be built up. In the area of modern and streets, settlements of ship craftsmen appeared, which were wooden houses and huts with front gardens. On the site of Palace Square a "Sea" market appeared, with huts and chests, wagons with firewood and hay stood. The area near the Admiralty became one of the most densely populated parts of the city.
In the early 1710s, a monastery (the future Alexander Nevsky Lavra) appeared on the left side of the Neva at the confluence of the Chernaya Rechka (now it is Monastyrka River). At the time, it was assumed that the famous Battle of the Neva took place there in 1240, where the Russian squad led by the Novgorod prince Alexander Nevsky defeated the Swedes. Near the monastery, there was a whole settlement with wooden houses for workers and servants, as well as a garden and a vegetable garden with numerous outbuildings: carpentry, blacksmiths and cattle yards, a mill, a cellar, and trade shops.
It became necessary to connect the two city centers with the old Novgorodsky tract (which ran approximately along the route of the modern Ligovsky prospect), which led inland. By imperial command, the construction of clearings began, which went through the swampy forest. The most swampy areas were in the area of modern Kazansky Cathedral, Mikhailovskaya Street, especially in the area between Ligovsky Prospect and Alexander Nevsky Lavra, which were a continuous chain of swamps. In 1712 the monks of the monastery began to pave the road from the monastery to the Novgorod tract, by 1718 it was completed ( ' and managed' ). A fairly simple technology was used to overcome the bog swamps: they cut down the forest, uprooted the stumps. Drainage ditches were dug to drain excess water and drain the swamps. fascines were laid along the road, covering them with sand. It is believed that the more difficult section ("monastery") was completed first. Translation in English of the quote about the Nevskaya perspective:
The first section of the highway from Moika to Fontanka was laid from 1710 to 1715, and then work continued on the section from Moika to the Admiralty. Along the Glukhoi channel (the current Griboyedov Canal) and further to modern Sadovaya Street, the so-called Resettlement Settlements arose, in which "artisans" with families were settled, transferred from Central Russia to St. Petersburg under construction by decree of 1710. Between the settlements and the Nevskaya Proseka, there was a strip of swampy forest, forbidden to felling on pain of severe punishment and even for walking. The left side of the avenue from Moika to Fontanka, occupied by the gardens of the Empress Ekaterina Alekseevna, was guarded by sentries. Periodically, rampant searches were carried out, those who were found to have felled trees were beaten by batog at the "Big Perspective". In 1721-23, on the banks of the Fontanka, a stone palace was erected for Empress Ekaterina Alekseevna, and during his reign, they laid out a regular garden called Italian. The garden occupied a huge space along the route of modern Nevsky Prospekt from Fontanka to modern Vosstaniya streets.
One way or another, Nevsky Prospect emerged in the second half of the 1710s. The glades from the Admiralty and from the Lavra together formed the future Nevsky Prospect. It is precisely the fact that the two roads were laid independently of each other that explains the break in the highway in the area of modern Vosstaniya Square.
The avenue immediately became a major highway in demand and, after building bridges over water obstacles, completely replaced the old path. The large perspective turned out to be about 4 miles long (4.5 kilometers), and 9 fathoms wide (about 20 meters). A wooden drawbridge Green bridge across the Moika was erected in 1720. The crossing was the city border in 1703–1726, taxes gathered here, for this there was Mytny Dvor, next to which was Gostiny Dvor. Even earlier, a bridge was built across the Fontanka, in 1715 Emperor Peter I issued a decree: "Over the Big Neva on the Fountain River, there is a prospect to create a bridge." By May 1716, the work was completed, and a wooden girder bridge on pile supports blocked both the channel itself and the swampy floodplain. In 1726 a guardhouse was erected and the city border was moved here.
1725–1762. Nevsky Prospect in the Era of Palace coups The great prospect became the main road: it was along it, as stated in the Senate decree of 1726, "there is always both arrival and departure of foreign and Russian subjects from everywhere to St. Petersburg." The government invested money in the improvement and cleanliness of the highway. In the 1720s, the initial section of the road running along Admiralty Meadow was landscaped: four rows of birches were planted on the sides, which were regularly trimmed, the road was paved with stones. In 1723, the avenue was the first in Russia to receive street lighting: oil lanterns were installed, later benches for passers-by appeared under them.
Translation in English of the quote: Description of this alley, made in 1721 by a chamber junker in the duke's retinue Karl-Friedrich of Holstein-Gottorp:
By the end of the first quarter of the 18th century, the buildings of the Great Perspective were few. In the beginning, there were several small houses, on the right side at the corner of the Moika there was a Mytny Dvor, behind the Moika there were salt barns. On the site of the modern Gostiny Dvor, a birch grove was green, then there were "perevedenskie settlements" consisting of wooden houses. The vast territory on the left side of the road from Moika to Fontanka was owned by Empress Catherine I, was low, swampy and undeveloped. The suburb of St Petersburg began behind the Fontanka. On the right side were the houses of the Anichkov settlement, where the soldiers of the Admiralty Workers' Battalion lived under the command of Lieutenant Colonel M. O. Anichkov. This battalion in 1715 built a wooden bridge across the Fontanka, called Anichkov Bridge.
Behind this narrow access bridge, from 1726, there was a wooden guard house, documents were checked and the barrier was raised. A canal was laid along the route of the current Ligovsky Prospekt, which supplied water to the Summer Garden fountains. Further, the territory was covered with forest and almost not developed. Buildings appeared only closer to the monastery, where land was allotted "in a line along the promising road" for the workers and employees of the monastery.
The construction of the avenue did not end there. In 1723, Peter I ordered to 'lay' the road from the cathedral church to the Admiralty in a prospective way. The road was supposed to abut against the vertical dominant – Trinity Cathedral of the Alexander Nevsky Monastery. For a number of reasons, it was not possible to realize this idea – the cathedral did not become a dominant feature and the road was not straightened. The idea of straightening the street was returned in the 1730s and the route was drawn along modern Goncharnaya and Telezhnaya streets. The original section of the avenue was given the name Staro-Nevsky. Later in the 1760s, the two directions were merged and Nevsky Prospekt got its modern look.
After a four-year stay in Moscow, in 1732 the courtyard of Anna Ioannovna returned to St Petersburg. For this event, the avenue was renovated and two triumphal arches were built on it (one at the Anichkov Bridge at the entrance to the city, the other at the bridge across the Moika), the event itself was quite pompous. The construction of the first large stone buildings began. The most significant of them was the Church of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, erected in 1733–1737 according to the project Mikhail Zemtsov on the site of the park in front of the current Kazan Cathedral. The temple was a rectangular building stretched along the avenue, similar in composition to Peter and Paul Cathedral. On the opposite side, in 1730, the Lutheran Church of St Peter appeared, located in the depths of the site. Two symmetrical residential buildings (which have not survived to this day) overlooked the avenue.
All buildings on the shady side of the early 18th century were destroyed in the fire of 1736. Mytny Dvor caught fire, then the flame spread to the neighboring wooden buildings. The fire raged for several hours, and as a result, several quarters of philistine wooden houses near the Admiralty burned down. The second fire happened a year later, destroying most of the buildings in the center of St Petersburg. After that, according to the Commission on the St. Petersburg Building, wooden houses on Nevsky were no longer built.
The Neva perspective became the most important factor that influenced the change in the layout of the entire settlement. She, together with Vosnesensky Prospect and Gorokhovaya Street, became part of the famous Admiralty "trident", which was approved by the Commission on the St. Petersburg building under the leadership of Pyotr Yeropkin. As a result, a powerful organizing structure was imposed on the disordered layout, and the status of the city center was finally entrenched for the Admiralty side. Since 1739, the main stone building was carried out on Nevsky Prospekt. It was carried out according to a strict plan, the houses were displayed with the main facades on the and were built according to standard "model" drawings developed by M.G. Zemtsov. These were one-story buildings, built on a high "cellar" semi-storey, processed by rustic. The central part of the facade is highlighted by an attic; next to it there was a gate that served as an entrance to the courtyard. The houses were distinguished by different pediments and attics, arrangement of windows, drawing of pilasters, platband s and decorative details. Such buildings appeared in the late 1730s – early 1740s along the highway between Moika and Fontanka. Land plots for the construction of houses on the avenue were acquired by state councilors, generals, wealthy merchants, factory owners, courtiers. Soon, members of the royal family and their entourage began to receive land, and the construction of palaces began. The first such structure was Anichkov Palace, intended for Elizaveta Petrovna, with a whole palace and park ensemble that arose on the site from Fontanka to present-day Sadovaya Street, with a huge regular garden with fountains enclosed by a stone wall, gazebos, greenhouses, ponds and covered walkways. The construction of the palace began in 1741 according to Zemtsov's drawings, and was completed in the 1750s Francesco Bartolomeo Rastrelli. Anichkov Palace is the oldest building on Nevsky Prospekt, preserved to this day.