In Krasnogvardeysky district, on the right bank of the Neva between Okhta and Rzhevka, almost every district library has been rebuilt over the past decade into a free public living room: coworking desks, a photo studio, a VR corner, exhibition halls and an art residency. The one everyone is talking about right now is the library and art residency called SHKAF ("the wardrobe") on Marshala Tukhachevskogo Street. Here is what is actually inside, how the system works for a visitor, and where else in the district you can sit down with a laptop, see an exhibition or catch a talk without paying a rouble.
What SHKAF is
Officially it is "Library and Art Residency SHKAF", part of the Krasnogvardeysky district library network. The network describes it as a "multi-format creative cluster" that merges a library with an artists' residency. Downstairs there is a fiction hall called "Sobranie", a non-fiction hall called "Znanie", an info hall and the Black Hall "Mesto" — a theatre and multimedia lab used for screenings and events. Upstairs: a coffee corner, the architectural photo gallery "Tochka", an open workspace for residents, a transformable meeting room, a designer's office and a children's hall. There is even a small meeting room for two or three people called the "Idler's Office" that can be booked through the staff or by e-mail ([email protected]). Resident artists build exhibitions and installations here, and openings are public.
Address and hours: Marshala Tukhachevskogo Street 31, tel. +7 (812) 226-87-80. Closed Monday; Tuesday 12:00–20:00; Wednesday to Friday 10:00–20:00; Saturday and Sunday 12:00–20:00. Closed on the last working day of each month and on 31 December. The bus stop is "Ulitsa Marshala Tukhachevskogo": trolleybus 3 or bus 133 from Ploshchad Lenina metro, trolleybus 1 or buses 132 and 206 from Novocherkasskaya, bus 181 from Ploshchad Vosstaniya.
How it works for a visitor
Public libraries in Saint Petersburg are free. To borrow books or use the media library you need a reader's card, issued on the spot with a passport; a parent registers a child. To sit and work, charge your phone, use the Wi-Fi or attend an exhibition or a talk, you generally just walk in during opening hours. Events are in Russian and the halls are small, so register in advance when a link is offered. Some services in the network are paid by a price list — printing, 3D printing, certain courses — ask at the desk.
Five more libraries in the same district
- Rzhevskaya — Industrialny Prospekt 35, building 1. Reopened after renovation in 2017: two coworking zones with bookable boxes, a VR area, a professional photo studio, a stage space and a children's play zone. Monday–Friday 12:00–20:00, weekends 11:00–19:00. Buses 27 and 92 from Ladozhskaya metro.
- KUB — Prospekt Marshaka 24, building 1, in the new Novaya Okhta neighbourhood. Opened in September 2019 and arranged as coloured "cubes": adult fiction, a children's zone with coworking, a media library, periodicals and foreign-language books, non-fiction, plus a white gallery for exhibitions. Monday–Friday 12:00–20:00, weekends 11:00–19:00.
- Sovremennik — Zanevsky Prospekt 28/32, a twelve-minute walk from Novocherkasskaya or Ladozhskaya metro. Renovated in 2018 and split into a "book quarter" and a "neighbourhood centre" with a coworking hall, a multimedia exhibition hall and a children's hall. Monday–Friday 12:00–20:00, weekends 11:00–19:00.
- NOTA — Prospekt Kosygina 28, building 1. A former children's library rebuilt in a light Scandinavian style: the right wing is for children under 13 with parents, the left wing for teenagers and adults. The longest hours in the network: Monday–Saturday 10:00–20:00, Sunday 12:00–20:00.
- SFERA — Lagody Street 7, building 1, the newest and the farthest out, in Rzhevka. Closed Monday, Tuesday–Sunday 12:00–20:00.
The network's flagship, the Gogol Library at Sredneokhtinsky Prospekt 8, has been closed for renovation since 5 March 2026; books are issued at a temporary point in Children's Library No. 4 at Bolshaya Porokhovskaya 12/34.
