The Anichkov Bridge - 300 Years of Beautiful Utility
I love bridges. I am fascinated with how we can combine great engineering with architectural beauty and then grace it with art all while maintaining its overall utility. The Anichkov Bridge on Nevsky Prospekt in St. Petersburg is a fantastic example of this mixture.
I have created a video of clips and photographs that I've compiled of the iconic bridge and I narrate a large portion of this articles text in the video. Take a look.
The bridge was first commissioned by Peter the Great and built by Mikhail Anichkov's Regiment around 1716. The bridge still bears his name after 300 years although it has been rebuilt several times over that period.
Spanning the Fontanka River
The Fontanka River once made up the Southern boundary of the city of St. Petersburg and after many years, several similar stone draw bridges were built to provide access to the city from the south. However, in the 1840's, it became necessary to expand the size of the Anichkov bridge to accommodate the large flows of traffic on Nevsky Prospekt. Therefore, the 4 towers of the drawbridge were removed and the bridge was widened.
Beautiful and ornate cast iron railings were added to the Anichkov directly above the 3 arches and on either side. These rails and the hump shape of the bridge itself provided a pleasant view of both the Fontanka River and Historic Nevsky Prospekt for pedestrians. It remains a popular spot today.
Klodt and the 4 Horse Tamers
At roughly the same time that the Anichkov was receiving a remodel to expand its size, Tsar Nicholas I commissioned sculptor Peter Klodt to create equestrian sculptures as gifts for the City of Naples and Frederick Wilhem IV of Prussia as gifts. Nicholas I was very fond of Klodt because of his amazing image of the Tsar on horseback located in St. Isaac's Square and the innovative design that featured an equestrian sculpture balanced on only 2 legs (a first at the time).
It was said that Klodt could create horse more realistic than the Stallions themselves and the gifts for Naples and Prussia were so popular that Nicholas I ordered copies be made and placed on each corner of the Anichkov Bridge.
Preserving the Iconic Works During the Siege
During the siege of Leningrad (St. Petersburg's Soviet name) in the Great Patriotic War (WWII), the decision was made to remove the 4 sculptures from the bridge to protect them from damage. They were carefully removed and buried until after the siege was lifted.
While the bridge was severely damaged by German artillery and bombing raids, the horses and their tamers remained unharmed. They were restored to their positions on the bridge about 1 week before the wars end in 1945.
Symbols of the City
The Anichkov Bridge and the sculptures remain some of the most iconic images of St. Petersburg and a popular destination for tourists and locals alike. The bridge has been featured in countless films used as a setting by many of the great Russian writers like Gogol and Dostoevsky.
For us, it remains one of our favorite places to stop and enjoy the view as well as a great position to watch some of St. Petersburg annual parades.
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All images are mine.
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You are getting really good at making these videos. There were a few it was hard to hear you, but now the sound is better and you have music and everything. You missed your calling, you would have made a great teacher.
Amazing they moved those large statues to preserve them. I wonder how many men and machines it took for them to ensure they didn't get damaged from the move itself.
There are some great photos of the move. They used sleds to take them off the pedestals with ropes tied for support from different angles. Replacing them was easier because they had machinery. Digging the holes for burial was one of the most difficult tasks because Piter is essentially on a swamp. Dig too deep and you hit water.
I appreciate you noticing my steady improvement in the video sphere. I am using Steemit as my self-development classroom with this. Soon, we are going to start shooting street musicians in a new #payitforward project that pays larger sums to great musicians that are playing for only "small change".
Talk to you again soon. Great to see you.
You have to ask Masha to let you work as a tour guide instead of her :))
Haha! Masha corrected me 3 times when I was writing and narrating the post. I'm luck to have such a smart wife.
I enjoy seeing St Petersburg through your eyes @energyaddict22. And you are really great at the narration.
I have only know that they exist but wondered, why do you not use Dtube for your videos?
I would like to use Dtube, but they are a pain in the ass for uploading video. After I spend several hours working on a post, I want to get it uploaded pretty quick. YouTube takes me 5 minutes. Dtube takes me hours sometimes (with formatting adjustments, space requirements, and stuff I don't understand) and then sometimes it still doesn't work. On top of it, they want to take 25% of my post. I'll pass. When they get their platform to be more user friendly, I will revisit it.
I always appreciate you stopping by and commenting. Good to see you and glad you liked the video/photos. :)
Какая богатая история у северной столицы России! Великий Петр смог создать по-настоящему красивый в архитектурном смысле город, призвав к участию итальянских архитекторов. Спасибо за интересный пост. Хороших выходных вам!
Really awesome to see these very beautiful horse
statues and learn more about about the area.
Something I heard about how some horse statues
are standing with one leg up or both was how the
person in honor died, in battle or natural causes.
Will have to refind that info :-)
I like that your video was on yt as I can hardly get
dtubes to play here. Hope that improves soon.
Followed your youtube.
Very impressive Victory Day on your older posts!
I'm enjoying your wonderful photographs and
information 🐎
Thanks for stopping by and the info about how soldiers died. I am definitely going to look into that. I am also frustrated with Dtube because I would rather avoid YouTube and the rat pack of Social Media giants; however, it is a total pain in the ass to upload videos to Dtube and then, as you said, often they don't play.
Thanks for the compliment on the photography. Of course, they are nothing compared to that shot of the Eagle on your page. Wow!
Amazing bridge, and i want to say that, in many great architectural creations we can see the horse structures and monuments as add on and these horse stuff is awesome to watch. And old Architectural Structures are really important because they are the real story tellers of the great stories of past times. Keep doing this amazing work and thanks for sharing this post and video with us. Wishing you an great day. Stay blessed. 🙂
Thanks again for stopping by, commenting and the compliment. Good to see you.
Welcome. 🙂
Wow that seems to be a pretty awesome spot there. Can you tell me how high your expanses are there in regards to other countries/cities?!
Rent, food, utilities, internet, and phone service for the 2 of us is about 70,000 rubles ($1100 USD) a month. This includes transportation on the metro and buses as well.
Okay, i honestly thought living costs would have been way higher there.
I love how the statues were taken down and buried during the siege.
That ornate building in the second photo is something else--I'm trying to figure out why there's a torso popping out of the wall on the first floor and then just a face blooming out of the carving on the next floor up. It's really unnerving because it looks like the head was snatched off the torso and floated up there and the torso arms are writhing upward like "my head! it's gone!"
Not my most intelligent comment ever, but I notice weird details sometimes😜
Someone got into the special cider I think. lol I will take a look and tell about the buildings in the area. There are a couple palaces.
Not a drop! But when I'm drop dead exhausted, the dumbest stuff becomes the most hilarious :)
I do wonder about the upkeep on a building like that. I always lament that modern buildings are so boring on the skyline compared to such "pretty" old fashioned ones, but in a practical sense I can appreciate that the streamlined no frills look is cheaper to build and then maintain through the years. Still...
beautiful bridges and charming artwork combined, i like it. Cheers
Thanks for commenting. Which bridge did you like the best?
I like the anichkov bridge, that is a simple bridge but looking elegant with its structure and ornament, regard.
beautiful photography.... and your post is very informative... thank you for sharing your knowledge with us....
Thanks for stopping by and commenting. Nice to see you.
Beautiful
Those statues looks real in size and in forms. So much beauty.
In size, they are nearly twice the size of real people and horses, but they are beautiful. Thanks for commenting.
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I don't come across this such beautiful art work before before I can see this amazing art work I need to go museum before I can sight this wonderful artwork this nice post
? Which "art work" are you referring to?
Beautiful!
Upvote.
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