Nevsky, Palace Square, the Hermitage, the canals — that circuit takes two days, and then comes the blank. Yet the least postcard-like part of Saint Petersburg begins where the centre ends: a village with a wooden church half an hour from the metro, apartment towers standing on concrete legs, a glass pavilion above the gulf. Seven districts and addresses, each of which we have covered separately.
Kolomyagi — a village inside the city
Streets of wooden houses and gardens, a working wooden church, the remains of a manor, and the "Artists' Village", a quarter where sculptors live and work. A children's railway runs nearby. All of it lies inside the city boundary, between Udelnaya and Ozerki, about fifteen minutes' walk from the metro.
Where: Nikitinskaya and Glavnaya streets · metro: Udelnaya, Pionerskaya or Ozerki
In detail: Kolomyagi: the wooden church, the manor and the Artists' Village
The Vasilyevsky reclaimed shore
New land where the gulf used to be: a wide embankment, wind, and the glass bus-stop pavilion that has become the most photographed shelter in the city — the water and the sunset show straight through it. The area is young, with no trees and no shade, but with a horizon you will not find anywhere else in Petersburg.
Where: the western tip of Vasilyevsky Island, around Nalichnaya Street · metro: Primorskaya, then by bus
In detail: the glass pavilion over the gulf: how to get there and when to shoot
Houses on legs
Residential towers raised above the ground on concrete supports — you can walk straight underneath. They were built in the 1970s, and not as an architectural whim but as a practical solution. Several stand in different districts, and each looks like a set for a film about a future that never arrived.
Where: several addresses across the city · metro: depends on the building
In detail: where the towers on supports stand and why they were built that way
The parks locals actually use
Sosnovka by Politekhnicheskaya, Udelny Park, Pionersky — not hidden treasures but ordinary district parks where Petersburgers go at weekends with a thermos. In autumn the Summer Garden is crowded even midweek; here in October you meet only dog walkers and runners.
Where: the north of the city · metro: Politekhnicheskaya, Udelnaya, Akademicheskaya, Grazhdansky Prospekt
In detail: seven parks without tourists, with directions and an honest description
Libraries of a new kind
"Shkaf" on Industrialny and the library on Marshaka are no longer reading rooms with paper cards but free spaces with exhibitions, lectures and quiet desks. You can register on the spot and entry costs nothing. For a visitor who needs a couple of hours with a laptop somewhere other than a café, this is an unobvious and working option.
Addresses: 35 Industrialny Prospekt and 24 Prospekt Marshaka · metro: Novocherkasskaya, Rzhevskaya
In detail: where to find free exhibitions, lectures and a quiet coworking spot
