Short answer: between roughly 1:00 and 5:00 a.m. St Petersburg has no public transport. The metro closes, the night bus network was shut down in 2020 and never restored, and the bridges over the Neva open for ships. What is left is a taxi, car sharing, your feet, or waiting until morning.
Two numbers decide your night: when the last train leaves your station, and when the bridge between you and your bed goes up. Both are personal — bridges open one by one from 1:10 to 2:20 a.m.
Night buses do not exist
You will find pages describing routes 1M to 5M, night buses copying the metro lines. They are obsolete: the city transport authority states on its own night bus page that the service was terminated on 13 July 2020 and that a restart would be announced separately. It never was. The night metro shuttle between Sportivnaya and Admiralteyskaya is gone too — the timetable in force from 1 October 2026 has no night section. Round-the-clock metro happens only on dates such as New Year's night and the Scarlet Sails graduation night in June.
The last train leaves earlier than you think
Do not confuse station closing time with the last train. Transfers between lines stop at 00:15, earlier than the trains themselves. Last trains from central interchanges, timetable valid from 1 October 2026:
- Nevsky Prospekt — 0:27 northbound, 0:31 southbound;
- Gostiny Dvor — 0:24 eastbound, 0:35 westbound;
- Ploshchad Vosstaniya — 0:29 both directions;
- Admiralteyskaya — 0:32 and 0:24;
- Vasileostrovskaya — 0:20 eastbound, 0:39 westbound;
- Sportivnaya — 0:35 and 0:20.
Line 6 shuts first: last trains from Yugo-Zapadnaya at 0:08 and 0:18. Two traps: the Mikhailovskaya Street exit of Nevsky Prospekt works only 7:00—23:00, and Park Pobedy and Frunzenskaya are closed for reconstruction. Vestibules reopen at 5:25—5:45, first trains at 5:30.
Bridges: the real curfew
The 2026 navigation season runs from 10 April to 30 November, so in October the bridges do open:
- Palace (Dvortsovy) — 1:10—2:50 and 3:10—4:55;
- Trinity (Troitsky) — 1:20—4:50;
- Blagoveshchensky — 1:25—2:45 and 3:10—5:00;
- Liteyny — 1:40—4:45;
- Birzhevoy and Tuchkov — 2:00—2:55 and 3:35—4:55;
- Bolsheokhtinsky — 2:00—5:00;
- Alexander Nevsky — 2:20—5:10.
Gaps between the two openings are short: 20 minutes at the Palace Bridge, 25 at Blagoveshchensky. A second opening may be cancelled once all ships have passed, but you cannot plan on it. Sampsonievsky, Grenadersky and Kantemirovsky open from 1:30 to 4:30 only on a shipping request filed two days ahead; on the night of 2 October 2026 Tuchkov Bridge did not open at all. Always available: the Bolshoy Obukhovsky cable-stayed bridge, the only fixed road crossing of the Neva, far out on the ring road. See the bridge schedule and what to do once they are up.
Why the taxi price doubles at 1:10
The base tariff does not change at night: Yandex Go economy starts at 149 ₽ including the first kilometre, then no more than 12 ₽ per kilometre and per minute. What changes is the surge multiplier, and bridges trigger it twice — when everyone misses the metro around 1:00, and when cars on the far bank physically cannot reach you. Order before the first opening, not after. If a bridge rises mid-ride, the driver detours via the Obukhovsky bridge; a surcharge demanded on top of the meter for that detour is not legitimate. See taxi scams in St Petersburg.
Airport and stations
Bus 39 runs from Pulkovo to Moskovskaya metro until 1:36, expresses 39Э and 82Э until 1:40, all at 88 ₽; after that it is a taxi until 5:15. Moskovskaya is south of the Neva, so bridges will not block a ride to the centre — a ride to Vasilievsky Island at 2 a.m. will. There are no night suburban trains: the last Finlyandsky departure is 23:58.
What to do first
Check the last train from your station and the first bridge opening on your route, and stay on the same bank as your hotel. If your margin is under 20 minutes, do not squeeze through the gap. Bridges come down from 4:45 and the metro opens at 5:25 — four hours in a 24-hour café cost less than a detour across the whole city.
Cover photo: Florstein ( Telegram: WikiPhoto.Space ) · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Викисклад
