Palace Embankment

Along the left bank of the Neva, from the mouth of the Fontanka to the Palace Bridge, stretches one of St Petersburg's most stately embankments, about 1.3 kilometres long. It takes its name from the palaces lined up along the water — above all the Winter Palace, together with the Hermitage complex and the Marble Palace.

The embankment's name has changed many times. In the early eighteenth century it was called Pochtovaya (Postal), then Nalichnaya Line, then Upper Embankment Street, and from the 1740s to the 1790s, Millionnaya. The name Palace Embankment was officially fixed to the thoroughfare in 1778. In 1923 it was renamed in memory of Bloody Sunday — Ninth of January Embankment — commemorating the shooting of the peaceful workers' procession to the Winter Palace in 1905. Its historical name was restored only in 1944.

Initially the Neva bank here remained unreinforced, and building took place further back on the plots. As early as 1716 the line of houses was moved closer to the river, with piles driven into the shallows. The real transformation began in 1761, when Empress Catherine II conceived a large-scale redevelopment of the capital and set up the Commission for Stone Construction, headed by the architect Yuri Felten. A decree of 1762 ordered that the Neva banks opposite palaces, gardens and government buildings be faced in stone. Construction of the granite facing — the first embankment of its kind in the city — continued until 1780: under the direction of Felten and Ivan Gerard, the marshy ground was reinforced with piles, oval staircases leading down to the water were built, and lamps were set up on metal posts.

Today the embankment is lined with the city's largest palace complexes: the Winter Palace with the Small and Large Hermitage, the Hermitage Theatre, the Marble Palace, the New Mikhailovsky Palace, and the palace of Grand Duke Vladimir Alexandrovich, now home to the House of Scientists. One of the oldest sections of the embankment, near the Summer Garden, preserves the memory of the house of Ivan Betskoy, tutor and adviser to Catherine II. Historically, members of the imperial family and their entourage settled here, later joined by prominent statesmen and cultural figures, including the minister Sergei Witte and the painter Konstantin Makovsky.

One of the most remarkable episodes in the embankment's history was the transport of the granite monolith for the Alexander Column: in 1830–1832 a six-hundred-tonne block, quarried at Pyterlax, was unloaded here using a specially built barge with a capacity of up to 1,100 tonnes, for which a separate pier was constructed.

Today Palace Embankment remains one of the most recognisable panoramas of St Petersburg: the granite parapet, the enfilade of palace façades, and the view across the Neva to the Peter and Paul Fortress make it an essential stop on almost any route through the historic centre. Pleasure boats and "Meteor" hydrofoils moor along the embankment, which has long been a favourite spot for evening strolls among both residents and visitors to St Petersburg.