Sytny Market

On Sytninskaya Street on St Petersburg's Petrogradskaya Side operates Sytny Market — the city's oldest market, trading on this site for more than three centuries. The stone building seen by today's shoppers was built considerably later than the market itself came into being, and is recognised as an architectural monument of the early 20th century.

The city's very first market appeared as early as 1705 on Trinity Square and was called the Obzhorny (Glutton's) Market, but in the summer of 1710 a major fire destroyed the trading rows along with the Gostiny Dvor and the customs house. The city authorities decided to move the trade further from the centre, and in 1711 a new Obzhorny Market — the predecessor of today's Sytny Market — opened on waste ground by the crownwork of the Peter and Paul Fortress. The name derived from the sale of hot food straight from the stalls; over time two similar-sounding names became established in everyday usage — “Sytny” (meaning “hearty” or “filling”) and the mistaken “Sitny” (meaning “sifted”, as in a type of fine wheat loaf) — giving rise to several local legends about the origin of the name.

The stone building that survives today was constructed in 1912–1913 to a design by the architect Maryan Lyalevich — the market's own traders had funded a competition for the new building as early as 1906. At the same time, nearby on Kronverksky Prospekt, the architects Marian Peretyatkovich and Lyalevich built the 2nd House of Municipal Institutions for the City Duma. The new stone building replaced dilapidated wooden rows, which contemporaries at the start of the 20th century compared to “the decrepit ruins of a provincial town.”

In the 18th century the square around Sytny Market served not only as a trading site but also as one of the city's grimmer places of public life: imperial decrees were proclaimed here, and, under Anna Ioannovna, public executions were carried out — in 1740 Artemy Volynsky, Pyotr Yeropkin and Andrei Khrushchov were executed here for conspiracy, and in 1764 the lieutenant Vasily Mirovich met the same fate. In 1861 the market was the site of the civil execution ceremony of the writer and revolutionary Mikhail Mikhailov. After the revolution the market closed and did not resume operation until 1936.

Today the trading floor of Sytny Market covers more than 2,500 square metres, with over five hundred trading points and a hotel operating on site, and the market has branches in Zelenogorsk and Sestroretsk. In the 2000s a new shopping centre called “Sytny” was built next to Lyalevich's building. The surrounding area regularly hosts district fairs and festivals — the market's 300th anniversary in 2010 was celebrated especially widely.

Sytny Market remains a living witness to the history of the Petrogradskaya Side: a place that began as an outlying trading ground on marshy wasteland has grown into a well-appointed market with an almost three-century-old unbroken trading tradition. Its architecture and its reputation as one of the city's oldest markets make it a notable landmark of the district.