The Summer Garden (russian: Ле́тний сад, ''Letniy sad'') is a historic public garden that occupies an eponymous island between the
Neva
The Neva (russian: Нева́, ) is a river in northwestern Russia flowing from Lake Ladoga through the western part of Leningrad Oblast (historical region of Ingria) to the Neva Bay of the Gulf of Finland. Despite its modest length of , it ...
,
Fontanka
The Fontanka (russian: Фонтанка), a left branch of the river Neva, flows through the whole of Central Saint Petersburg, Russia – from the Summer Garden to . It is long, with a width up to , and a depth up to . The Moyka River for ...
,
Moika
The Moyka (russian: Мо́йка /MOY-ka/, also latinised as Moika) is a secondary, in comparison with the Neva River in Saint Petersburg that encircles the central portion of the city, effectively making it an island or a group of islands ...
, and the
Swan Canal in
downtown Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...
,
Russia
Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...
and shares its name with the adjacent
Summer Palace of Peter the Great. Its inception dates back to early 18 century when Russia took these lands from Sweden in the
Great Northern War
The Great Northern War (1700–1721) was a conflict in which a coalition led by the Tsardom of Russia successfully contested the supremacy of the Swedish Empire in Northern, Central and Eastern Europe. The initial leaders of the anti-Swedi ...
. Being a monument of
landscape architecture
Landscape architecture is the design of outdoor areas, landmarks, and structures to achieve environmental, social-behavioural, or aesthetic outcomes. It involves the systematic design and general engineering of various structures for constructio ...
featuring original and copied sculptures of
classical mythology
Classical mythology, Greco-Roman mythology, or Greek and Roman mythology is both the body of and the study of myths from the ancient Greeks and ancient Romans as they are used or transformed by cultural reception. Along with philosophy and polit ...
characters, a former royal palace and a monument to the
fable
Fable is a literary genre: a succinct fictional story, in prose or verse, that features animals, legendary creatures, plants, inanimate objects, or forces of nature that are anthropomorphized, and that illustrates or leads to a particular mo ...
author
Ivan Krylov
Ivan Andreyevich Krylov (russian: Ива́н Андре́евич Крыло́в; 13 February 1769 – 21 November 1844) is Russia's best-known fabulist and probably the most epigrammatic of all Russian authors. Formerly a dramatist and journali ...
, the garden is now a branch of the Saint Petersburg-based national art treasury
Russian Museum
The State Russian Museum (russian: Государственный Русский музей), formerly the Russian Museum of His Imperial Majesty Alexander III (russian: Русский Музей Императора Александра III), on ...
.
Landscape design
Original
The park was personally designed by Tsar Peter in 1704, supposedly, with the assistance of the Dutch gardener and physician
Nicolaas Bidloo
Nicolaas Bidloo (c. 1673/74 – 23 March 1735) was a Dutch physician who served as the personal physician of Tsar Peter I of Russia (Peter the Great). Bidloo was the director of the first hospital in Russia as well as the first medical scho ...
. Starting from 1712, the planting of the Summer Garden was further elaborated by the Dutch gardener
Jan Roosen, who was the chief gardener of the park till 1726. The well-known French architect
Jean-Baptiste Le Blond, who arrived in St. Petersburg in 1716, added to the park the flavour of a
Garden à la française
The French formal garden, also called the (), is a style of garden based on symmetry and the principle of imposing order on nature. Its epitome is generally considered to be the Gardens of Versailles designed during the 17th century by the l ...
. The Summer Garden was largely completed in 1719. The walks were lined with a hundred allegorical marble sculptures, executed by
Francesco Penso,
Pietro Baratta,
Marino Gropelli,
Alvise Tagliapietra
Alvise Tagliapietra (1670–1747) was a Venetian baroque sculptor.
Tagliapietra was born in Venice in 1670 and died there in 1747.
Between 1705 and 1711, he and his studio carved several standing marble figures for the high altar of the Church ...
,
Bartolomeo Modulo and other Venetian sculptors that were acquired by
Sava Vladislavich
Count Sava Lukich Vladislavich-Raguzinsky (russian: Са́вва Луки́ч Рагузи́нский-Владиславич; sr, Сава Владиславић Рагузински, ''Sava Vladislavić Raguzinski''; 16 January 1669 – 17 June ...
. In the late 20th century, 90 surviving statues were moved indoors, while modern replicas took their place in the park.
The sequence of patterned
parterre
A ''parterre'' is a part of a formal garden constructed on a level substrate, consisting of symmetrical patterns, made up by plant beds, low hedges or coloured gravels, which are separated and connected by paths. Typically it was the part of ...
s, originally more formal than the current landscape, were the site of Imperial ''assemblies'', or lavish parties which often included balls, feasts, and
fireworks
Fireworks are a class of Explosive, low explosive Pyrotechnics, pyrotechnic devices used for aesthetic and entertainment purposes. They are most commonly used in fireworks displays (also called a fireworks show or pyrotechnics), combining a l ...
. Apart from the statuary, a major park attraction were the
fountain
A fountain, from the Latin "fons" (genitive "fontis"), meaning source or Spring (hydrology), spring, is a decorative reservoir used for discharging water. It is also a structure that jets water into the air for a decorative or dramatic effect. ...
s, the oldest in Russia, representing scenes from
Aesop's fables
Aesop's Fables, or the Aesopica, is a collection of fables credited to Aesop, a slave and storyteller believed to have lived in ancient Greece between 620 and 564 BCE. Of diverse origins, the stories associated with his name have descended to ...
. Some of these fell out of use and were demolished after the 1777 inundation which destroyed the fountain machinery acquired by Peter the Great in Britain.
Later
A delicate iron-cast railing, separating the park from the public walk of the
Palace Embankment
The Palace Embankment or Palace Quay (Russian: Дворцовая набережная, Dvortsovaya naberezhnaya) is a street along the Neva River in Central Saint Petersburg which contains the complex of the Hermitage Museum buildings (including ...
, was installed between 1771 and 1784 to a design by
Georg von Veldten. The grille is suspended between 36 granite columns crowned with urns and vases. The poet
Anna Akhmatova
Anna Andreyevna Gorenko rus, А́нна Андре́евна Горе́нко, p=ˈanːə ɐnˈdrʲe(j)ɪvnə ɡɐˈrʲɛnkə, a=Anna Andreyevna Gorenko.ru.oga, links=yes; uk, А́нна Андрі́ївна Горе́нко, Ánna Andríyivn ...
, among others, considered the grille to be a pinnacle of art-
casting
Casting is a manufacturing process in which a liquid material is usually poured into a mold, which contains a hollow cavity of the desired shape, and then allowed to solidify. The solidified part is also known as a ''casting'', which is ejected ...
and one of the symbols of St Petersburg.
In the 1820s, a
grotto pavilion
In architecture, ''pavilion'' has several meanings:
* It may be a subsidiary building that is either positioned separately or as an attachment to a main building. Often it is associated with pleasure. In palaces and traditional mansions of Asia ...
, attributed to
Andreas Schlüter
Andreas Schlüter (1659 – c. June 1714) was a German baroque sculptor and architect, active in the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, and the Russian Tsardom.
Biography
Andreas Schlüter was b ...
and
Georg Johann Mattarnovy, was rebuilt into a coffee house. On the bank of the Carp Pond, a magnificent
porphyry vase, a gift of
Charles XIV of Sweden
sv, Karl Johan Baptist Julius
, spouse =
, issue = Oscar I of Sweden
, house = Bernadotte
, father = Henri Bernadotte
, mother = Jeanne de Saint-Jean
, birth_date =
, birth_place = Pau, ...
to the tsar, was installed in 1839. Fifteen years later,
a famous monument to the children's writer
Ivan Krylov
Ivan Andreyevich Krylov (russian: Ива́н Андре́евич Крыло́в; 13 February 1769 – 21 November 1844) is Russia's best-known fabulist and probably the most epigrammatic of all Russian authors. Formerly a dramatist and journali ...
was opened in the park. A sign of the progress of
Romanticism
Romanticism (also known as the Romantic movement or Romantic era) was an artistic, literary, musical, and intellectual movement that originated in Europe towards the end of the 18th century, and in most areas was at its peak in the approximate ...
in Russian official culture, it was the first monument to a poet erected in
Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe is a subregion of the Europe, European continent. As a largely ambiguous term, it has a wide range of geopolitical, geographical, ethnic, cultural, and socio-economic connotations. The vast majority of the region is covered by Russ ...
.
On 4 April 1866
Dmitry Karakozov
Dmitry Vladimirovich Karakozov (russian: Дми́трий Влади́мирович Карако́зов; – ) was a Russian political activist and the first revolutionary in the Russian Empire to make an attempt on the life of a tsar. His ...
made the first attempt to assassinate the tsar when he walked out of the Summer Garden. As the attempt proved abortive, the ponderous
Summergrille memorial chapel in a
Russian Revival
The Russian Revival style (historiographical names are: ''Russian style'', russian: русский стиль, ''Pseudo-Russian style'', russian: псевдорусский стиль, ''Neo-Russian style'', russian: нео-русский стил ...
style was built over the gate. This reattachment was demolished by the
Bolsheviks
The Bolsheviks (russian: Большевики́, from большинство́ ''bol'shinstvó'', 'majority'),; derived from ''bol'shinstvó'' (большинство́), "majority", literally meaning "one of the majority". also known in English ...
after the
October Revolution
The October Revolution,. officially known as the Great October Socialist Revolution. in the Soviet Union, also known as the Bolshevik Revolution, was a revolution in Russia led by the Bolshevik Party of Vladimir Lenin that was a key moment ...
.
The park was chosen by
Alexander Pushkin
Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin (; rus, links=no, Александр Сергеевич ПушкинIn pre-Revolutionary script, his name was written ., r=Aleksandr Sergeyevich Pushkin, p=ɐlʲɪkˈsandr sʲɪrˈɡʲe(j)ɪvʲɪtɕ ˈpuʂkʲɪn, ...
as a setting for childhood walks of the fictional character
Eugene Onegin
''Eugene Onegin, A Novel in Verse'' (Reforms of Russian orthography, pre-reform Russian: ; post-reform rus, Евгений Оне́гин, ромáн в стихáх, p=jɪvˈɡʲenʲɪj ɐˈnʲeɡʲɪn, r=Yevgeniy Onegin, roman v stikhakh) is ...
.
Sculptures
![Krylov summer garden](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2a/Krylov_summer_garden.jpg)
Many of the sculptures now adorning the Summer Garden date back to the early 18th century. In the 19th century, the intended arrangement of the decorative sculptures in the Summer Garden was forgotten, quite a few of the sculptures were no longer extant, and those remaining were moved from place to place, thus destroying the original design. In late 20th century, all sculptures were rearranged and today they stand in accordance with the aesthetic ideas characteristic of the beginning of the 18th century.
To protect sculptures from winter weather they have been traditionally covered with wooden cases and reopened in warm season and cleaned; to further safeguard valuable antiques, protecting them from vandalism as well, Russian Museum initiated copying them to keep in the adjacent St Michael's Castle (another branch of the same Museum), placing copies in the open garden.
See also
*
Alexander Garden (Saint Petersburg)
:''This park should not be confused with Alexander Park in St. Petersburg and Alexander Garden in Moscow.''
The Alexander Garden (Александровский сад) lies along the south and west façades of the Russian Admiralty in St. Peter ...
References
External links
The Summer Garden & Palace of Peter I*
ead link: St Petersburg Russia - Parks
{{coord, 59.946, N, 30.335, E, type:landmark, display=title
Gardens in Saint Petersburg
Russian Baroque gardens
Sculpture gardens, trails and parks in Russia
Urban public parks
Art gallery districts
Parks and open spaces in Saint Petersburg
Cultural heritage monuments of federal significance in Saint Petersburg