Liteyny Avenue in St. Petersburg

Liteyny Avenue is a wide avenue in the Central District of Saint Petersburg, Russia. The avenue runs from Liteyny Bridge to Nevsky Avenue.

Main attractions

At the very beginning of the avenue, two Neo-Renaissance buildings are symmetrically located. They were designed and built by the architect Alexander Petrovich Gemilian in 1851-1853 for the needs of the artillery department.

Particularly noteworthy is house number 4 – a monumental, expressive building with columns. This is an architectural monument of the Soviet era, built in the 30s of the XX century. Before its construction, the district court of St. Petersburg was located on this site for many years, and now the FSB department is located in the building.

Most of the buildings of Liteyny Prospekt are associated with the names of great people who made a huge contribution to the history of the development of literature, art, science, and architecture of the state. One of the most grandiose and beautiful is house number 24 – a five-story building, made in the Moorish style, once owned by the noble prince Alexander Muruzi.

Writer Dmitry Merezhkovsky lived in this building with his wife, poetess Zinaida Gippius, as well as poet Joseph Brodsky at one time. It is well known that representatives of the aristocratic circles of the city preferred to settle here. Wealthy people erected magnificent residential buildings that are pleasing to the eye to this day.

The State Drama Theater “On Liteyny” is located on Liteyny Prospekt, 51.

The Anna Akhmatova Museum in the Fountain House was opened in St. Petersburg on June 24, 1989, on the centenary of the birth of the poetess. It’s also located on Liteyny.

The Museum of the History of the Troops of the Western Military District is located on Liteyny prospekt, 20. In seven halls, on an area of ​​more than 500 square meters, exhibits are presented that tell about the history of the St. Petersburg, Petrograd, Leningrad and Western military districts, about military operations during the Civil, Winter and Great Patriotic Wars.

An unusually exquisite mansion – house number 1, once owned by Princess Varvara Dolgoruky, still amazes the imagination with the beauty of the external and internal decoration. It was designed by the architect Nizovtsev in 1840. The customer of the work was the grandson of the famous Princess Natalya Petrovna Golitsyna, who served as the prototype of the Countess in Pushkin’s The Queen of Spades.

Another interesting building is located at 60 Liteyny Prospekt. It was here that the great Mikhail Evgrafovich Saltykov-Shchedrin lived for thirteen years. Between 1876 and his death in 1889, the satirist created his famous fairy tales and many other popular works here. Literary celebrities were often seen visiting him: Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev, Alexander Nikolayevich Ostrovsky, Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky.

Sergei Yesenin spent several years in house number 33, as evidenced by a memorial plaque on its wall. The poet Nikolai Alekseevich Nekrasov and the writer Nikolai Alexandrovich Dobrolyubov lived for a long time in house № 36, built in the 80s of the 18th century. This apartment, which housed the editorial offices of the magazines Sovremennik and Otechestvennye Zapiski, became a real center of advanced Russian literature for many years.

The perspective of Liteyny Prospekt from Belinsky Street is completed by the former palace of Princess Zinaida Nikolaevna Yusupova, built in the late 1850s. Its magnificent facade with decorative elements is made in the Baroque style. The inner chambers are decorated with magnificent paintings, marble, stucco and gilding.

Transport and how to get to?

Bus route No. 15 runs along Liteyny Prospekt from Nevsky Prospekt to Nekrasova Street, as well as a number of commercial bus routes.

Trolleybus routes No. 3 and No. 8 pass through the entire avenue, trolleybus No. 15 follows the section from Nevsky Prospekt to Kirochnaya Street (in the opposite direction – from Chaikovsky Street).

Tram tracks are laid along the entire length of the avenue, but they have not been used for passenger traffic since 2007. On March 29, 2017, activists proposed to return the tram to Liteyny Prospekt, but the government of St. Petersburg called this idea inappropriate.

Nearest metro station (by foot):

Chernyshevskaya – 7-10 minutes
Mayakovskaya – 5-7 minutes
Dostoevskaya – 7-10 minutes
Gostiny Dvor – 15-20 minutes

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