The Bridges Are Up and You Are on the Wrong Bank: How to Get Back at Night in Saint Petersburg

The classic Saint Petersburg trap: it is half past one in the morning, you are on Vasilyevsky Island or the Petrograd Side, your hotel is across the Neva — and the bridges are up. The night buses that guidebooks still describe have not run since 2020. Here is what actually exists, in order of reliability.

First, work out where you are

Bridge raising only matters if you need to cross the Neva itself. Between the centre and the Petrograd Side there are bridges over the Malaya Neva and Malaya Nevka that are never raised, so from the Petrograd Side you can walk round. Vasilyevsky Island is cut off completely: both the Palace Bridge and the Blagoveshchensky Bridge go up.

Option one: wait for the gap

Several bridges are raised twice a night with a gap in between when you can cross on foot or by car. By the 2026 schedule of the city bridge authority Mostotrest:

• Palace Bridge — raised 1:10–2:50 and 3:10–4:55, gap 2:50–3:10;
• Blagoveshchensky Bridge — raised 1:25–2:45 and 3:10–5:00, gap 2:45–3:10;
• Volodarsky Bridge — raised 2:00–3:45 and 4:15–5:30, gap 3:45–4:15;
• Trinity (1:20–4:50), Liteyny (1:40–4:45), Bolsheokhtinsky (2:00–5:00) and Alexander Nevsky (2:20–5:10) — one raising for the whole night, no gap.

The twenty-minute Palace Bridge gap is a real chance to walk from Vasilyevsky to the centre — the Spit to Palace Square is about ten minutes on foot. Be there by 2:45, not 3:05: the bridge is lowered and raised by timetable, not by the size of the crowd. Bridges are raised during the navigation season, until the end of November, and on some nights the schedule shifts — check Mostotrest's site in the evening.

Option two: the night metro shuttle

The metro closes around midnight, but during the navigation season a shuttle train runs between Admiralteyskaya and Sportivnaya — only on Friday-to-Saturday and Saturday-to-Sunday nights, 1:00–3:00, roughly every 20 minutes. It is the only night link between the centre and the Petrograd Side under the river. There is no shuttle on weekdays or in winter; the metro announces the arrangement for each season, so check its website before relying on it.

Option three: fixed bridges and the ring roads

Across the whole Neva only the Bolshoi Obukhovsky (cable-stayed) bridge on the ring road is never raised, and it is far from the centre. Vasilyevsky Island is linked to the Petrograd Side by the fixed Betancourt Bridge, and the Western High-Speed Diameter toll road crosses the bay on fixed bridges, bypassing the centre from the west. Useless on foot, workable by taxi: from Vasilyevsky to the centre a car will go via the Betancourt Bridge and the Petrograd Side (once its bridges are down) or via the WHSD and the Obukhovsky. Ten minutes becomes forty to sixty, at surge pricing — sometimes waiting for the gap is cheaper.

What does not exist

• Night buses. Routes 1M–5M, which mirrored the metro lines, were withdrawn on 13 July 2020 and have not been restored — that is the official position of the city transport authority. Articles with their "2026 timetable" are recycled from old ones.
• Regular night boats. Excursion boats take people to watch the bridges open; they do not operate as a ferry.

How to avoid the situation

• Stay on the bank where you plan to spend your evenings — for a visitor, that is the centre.
• End an evening on Vasilyevsky before 1:10, or plan for the 2:50–3:10 gap.
• On a weekend, from the Petrograd Side, the 1:00–3:00 metro shuttle solves it.
• Our separate guide covers the bridge-raising schedule and the best places to watch if you decide to stay out.

Frequently asked questions