Sennaya Square (or Hay square, from 1952 to 1992 – Peace Square) is a square in the center of St. Petersburg, located at the intersection of Moskovsky Prospekt and Sadovaya Street.
The numbering of houses by area is carried out from the corner house with Spassky Lane in a counterclockwise direction.
The square got its name at the end of the 18th century due to the fact that hay was sold at this place (before that it was called the “Big” and “Horse” square). In 1952, the square was renamed Peace Square, and on July 1, 1992, its former name was returned to it.
The districts adjacent to Sennaya Square were traditionally inhabited by the poor people. So, for example, the buildings on the site between modern Moskovsky Prospekt, Efimov Street and the Fontanka River Embankment were called the Vyazemskaya Lavra and were one of the worst slums in the city.
The life and customs of the inhabitants of the area around Sennaya were repeatedly described by writers, for example, F. M. Dostoevsky (the novel “Crime and Punishment”) and V. V. Krestovsky.
Until the middle of the 19th century, on Sennaya Square, persons convicted of robbery, theft and fraud were subjected to public corporal punishment (“commercial executions”) – described by N. A. Nekrasov.
In 1753 local merchants commissioned the building of the Church of the Assumption of the Mother of God in a sumptuous Baroque style.
In 1961, at the height of Nikita Khrushchev’s anti-religious campaign, he had the church blown up to make way for a new metro station; a chapel now marks the site. The 17.5 meter high “Peace Column”, a gift of France for the tercentenary of St. Petersburg, was dismantled during the heatwave of 2010. The column featured the word “peace” written in 49 languages.
The square is always crowded, three subway lines, tram and bus routes intersect here.
Public transport
The nearest metro stations are Sennaya Square, Spasskaya, Sadovaya.
Tram routes:
No. 3 (Lenin Square – Repin Square)
Trolleybus routes:
No. 17 (Kazan Cathedral – Kosciuszko Street)
Bus social routes:
No. 49 (Dvinskaya st. – Botkinskaya st.)
No. 50 (Malaya Balkanskaya St. – Theater Square)
No. 70, 71 (Dvinskaya St. – Dvinskaya St.)
No. 181 (Marshal Tukhachevsky St. – Repin Square)
