The bridges are raised for ships, not for tourists: navigation on the Neva runs from 10 April to 30 November, and up to fifty vessels pass beneath the raised spans in a single night.

Mostotrest, the city bridge authority, operates eighteen opening bridges; twelve of them open on a regular schedule. Here is what the 2026 timetable actually means if you are on the wrong bank at two in the morning.

When traffic stops

The times below are when a bridge closes to traffic and when it reopens. In between, it stands raised.

Palace Bridge (Dvortsovy) — 1:10 to 2:50, then 3:10 to 4:55.

Trinity Bridge (Troitsky) — 1:20 to 4:50, in one stretch.

Blagoveshchensky — 1:25 to 2:45, then 3:10 to 5:00.

Liteyny — 1:40 to 4:45.

Bolsheokhtinsky — 2:00 to 5:00.

Alexander Nevsky — 2:20 to 5:10.

Volodarsky — 2:00 to 3:45, then 4:15 to 5:30.

Birzhevoy and Tuchkov — 2:00 to 2:55, then 3:35 to 4:55.

The gaps that matter

The useful part of the timetable is not the openings but the intervals between them. Four bridges are raised twice a night, and in between they carry traffic again.

Palace Bridge is down from 2:50 to 3:10 — twenty minutes.

Blagoveshchensky is down from 2:45 to 3:10 — twenty-five minutes, and the most dependable window in the centre.

Birzhevoy and Tuchkov are down from 2:55 to 3:35 — forty minutes, the longest of all. Both lead to the Petrogradskaya side.

So if you are stranded on Vasilyevsky Island after one in the morning, you do not have to wait until five: Blagoveshchensky comes down around three.

Three bridges that open only on request

Sampsonievsky, Grenadersky and Kantemirovsky, all crossing the Bolshaya Nevka, are raised between 1:30 and 4:30 only if a request is filed two days in advance.

On an ordinary night they are most likely down — but you cannot count on them, because the request comes from a ship operator and is not published.

If you need a guaranteed crossing

The Bolshoy Obukhovsky Bridge on the ring road is cable-stayed and never opens. It is the one Neva crossing that works all night without interruption — and it is far from the centre, which makes it useful by car and useless on foot.

Mostotrest also runs a live status service showing whether a given bridge is currently raised. Before walking out at three in the morning that beats any published schedule, including this one: times shift for weather and repairs.

Watching them, if that is why you came

The first opening of the night is Palace Bridge at 1:10, and it draws the largest crowd in the city at that hour. The Spit of Vasilyevsky Island is the better vantage point: you see both the Palace and Birzhevoy bridges, and the crowd spreads over a wider space.

Trinity Bridge at 1:20 is the second spectacle — a single wing rising, best seen from the Field of Mars.

One sober note: September nights here are cold and dark. The white nights are over and the facade lighting goes off around one, so dress for an autumn evening by the water.

Related

If a raised bridge catches you on the way in from the airport, our guide to getting from Pulkovo to the centre covers the night options. And tram routes 6 and 40 come into their own in the morning, once the bridges are down.

Photo: Florstein · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons. Schedule and navigation dates verified on 1 September 2026 against the Mostotrest website.