St. Petersburg has had several names during its existence: Petrograd, Leningrad, and of course St. Petersburg. It also has a nickname: “Venice of the North”. Once you’re out cruising the rivers and canals of St. Petersburg, you can easily see how the city got that name. Our Neva River cruise gave us the opportunity to explore the Venice of the North from the point of view of those rivers and canals.
From Lake Lagoda to the Baltic Sea
The city of St. Petersburg was established at the confluence of the Gulf of Finland and the Neva River. The Neva River begins its life at Lake Lagoda in northwest Russia. It is the largest lake that is entirely in Europe, the second largest in Russia after Lake Baikal. From there it flows about 74 km (46 miles) westward in a roughly U-shaped path toward the Baltic Sea. Along the way, the Neva River passes through dozens of smaller towns and villages, and areas that used to be forest, swamp, wasteland, and marshland. It continues its course through St. Petersburg, where it empties out into an estuary at the Gulf of Finland in the Baltic Sea. Even though Europe’s largest lake feeds it, the Neva River is one of the continent’s shortest rivers.
The Neva River became and still is a vital transportation artery. As you can imagine, many battles took place for control of this important waterway. For 500 years Sweden, Finland, Russia, and the Balts battled it out on the river’s banks. Things seemed to calm down after Alexander Yaroslavich (later called Alexander Nevsky) defeated the Swedish army in 1240. Then in 1703, the city of St. Petersburg was founded by Tsar Peter the Great at the river’s delta.
As the city grew, canals that branched out from the Neva were dug, primarily to drain swamps. Earth from the dredged canals was used to fill in other parts of the fledgling city. More than 40 islands lie within St. Petersburg alone, the largest being Vasilyevsky Island. Decembrists (Dekabristov), Kamenny, and Petrogradsky are some of the other islands.
The first embankments along the river were made of wood. These were later gradually covered by granite. Today the granite embankments are a main feature that defines St. Petersburg’s iconic vista.
Shipping, pleasure, and tourist vessels ply the Neva during the spring, summer, and early fall when it is navigable. Between November and April, the river normally freezes over.
Ice skating used to be very popular on the frozen river. The Neva Skating Association was formed around 1863 and was instrumental in the development of skating. I’m not sure how much skating is done on the river these days, but there are a lot of ice skating rinks in St. Petersburg, many located on the river’s islands.
St. Petersburg is now a designated UNESCO World Heritage site. The official designation is the Historic Centre of Saint Petersburg and Related Groups of Monuments. That includes the Neva River.
Our Neva River cruise begins
We were given a short-ish tour of the city before heading to the dock to begin our cruise. But we stopped at a seemingly random spot along a canal. This is supposed to be a river cruise, right? So where is the terminal building? Where is the signage? Once we got off the bus and walked toward the edge of a canal, we saw a set of stairs leading down to the water. A long boat awaited us there. Ok. So this must be it. Yet another reminder to remove my American lens… and expectations.
It was a beautiful day for a cruise. Perfect 25-degree C (75-degree F) temperature. Blue sky with a mix of cloud types in the distance, which largely stayed away from us. From what we were told, several times on this trip, weather like this is unusual here.
Boarding our boat, we found it had a galley downstairs. There was also a glass-covered observation area. Up on the main deck were blue plastic outdoor chairs for passengers to sit on. My first impression was this would not be very safe if we hit turbulent water. But we were on a river protected by granite embankments, some distance from the open gulf. Little chance of rough water here. In reality, it was very calm. The only time we hit anything close to unsettled water was when we got out onto the Neva River itself, and even then it was very mild.
One of the first things I noticed as we got underway was the low clearance of the bridges as we passed under, some with clearances as low as 3 meters (9.8 feet). And there are a lot of bridges. Many of them are quite ornate with sculptures, streetlamps, ironwork, and gilding on them.
Natasha, our guide, shined, giving us volumes of information about the buildings and attractions we were seeing, and about the river itself. The Neva River flows immediately past or within sight of many of the most famous buildings and attractions in St. Petersburgh. We got to see a large number of them as we cruised by.
It wasn’t long before my brain became full and could not hold anymore facts. I gave up trying to remember all of the details Natasha shared with us and just tried to absorb everything we saw. I was photographing as we went, so I’d at least have a physical (more like digital) record of everything. I knew I would be able to look up things I thought were interesting after I returned home, and be able to attach the information to the photos. Thank goodness for the internet! That actually allowed me to relax a bit.
The Hermitage Bridge and the covered walkway spanning the Winter Canal (Zimnyaya Kanavka) got a lot of attention from our group as we approached, and then sailed under. I think it may have been because it looked like we were sailing right through a building with a skylight. The Hermitage Bridge links the Winter Palace to the rest of the State Hermitage Museum complex. I’ll tell you more about the river’s bridges in a moment.
On the Neva
From the Winter Canal, we turned onto the Neva River itself and picked up speed. Here our boat joined some of the other vessels plying these waters. Compared to the Winter Canal, the Neva is like a 6-lane highway.
From the middle of the river, we had a good view of the State Hermitage Museum and its river-facing buildings on our right. From here we also had a duck’s-eye view of Peter and Paul Fortress and the steeple of the Saints Peter and Paul Cathedral on our left.
From the back of the boat, we got a wide view of the entire front of Vasilyevsky Island, where we were earlier in the morning. While we were on it, it didn’t look like an island. Maybe because the granite embankments made it seem like we were on the bank of a river (which we were) as opposed to a lake or ocean.
Looking right, the full span of the Palace Bridge became visible. After passing under the Troitsky Bridge, Fregat Blagodat (website is in Russian) — the floating restaurant inside a moored frigate ship — appeared ahead of us. The restaurant itself is extraordinarily beautiful inside. The setting reminded me of some parts of Catherine Palace. They feature Italian, Russian, and other European fare. The near-panoramic view from the dining area back across the Neva toward the buildings on the Palace Embankment is very picturesque. Imagine Russian landscape painter Fyodor Alexeyev standing there next to you, easel set up, brushes laid out, reverently capturing the scene on canvas down to the smallest detail.
Since the water was so calm, I took the opportunity to stand up and take a 360-degree series of photos. Because it had long since become impossible to gawk, photograph, listen to Natasha, and take notes, I had to look up most of the following after we got home, but let’s see if I can relate to you some of the other things we saw:
We cruised roughly northwest along the Neva River, passing Trinity Square (Troitskaya Ploshchad) on our left. A couple of minutes later, we swung a right-hand turn onto the smaller Fontanka River. It was strange to me seeing rivers and canals intersecting each other like streets.
On our left was the Leningrad Regional Court (Leningradskiy Oblastnoy Sud). Next, on our right was St. Michael’s Castle (Mikhailovsky Zamok). St. Michael’s has an interesting history as the former residence of a very paranoid Emperor Paul I. It is now called the Engineer’s Castle (Inzhenerny Zamok).
Ahead on our right, the onion domes of the Church of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ came into view through a space between buildings. This was another place we visited earlier in the day. It sure looked different seeing it from this side of town.
Shifting our gaze to the left, the Sheremetev Palace – Museum of Music (Sheremetevskiy Dvorets – Muzey Muzyki) floated past. Sheremetev Palace is also known as the Fountain House. It contains a large collection of artwork, and the largest collection of musical instruments in Russia.
Lifting our eyes above the banks of the Neva and beyond the tops of the buildings, Natasha pointed out the iconic Trinity (Troitsky) Cathedral (Sobor Svyatoy Zhivonachl’noy Troitsy) in the distance to our left. Trinity Cathedral is easily identified by its massive blue dome and four smaller ones. It was a Russian Orthodox Church until it was looted during the Russian Revolution. It went back to being a Russian Orthodox Church again after the former Soviet Union broke up. Though we could not see it from our perspective on the Neva, the huge Column of Glory stands on one side of the cathedral.
A sign for a concert by English rock band Pink Floyd appeared along the Fontanka River Embankment. I was surprised but happy to see that. Because we were moving and down on the river, and the rest of the sign was obscured by street traffic, I couldn’t see the entire sign. But I’m guessing it was promoting a Pink Floyd revue.
Two buildings that really caught my attention were ones Natasha did not mention: the Treasury Building, and the Saint Petersburg State University of Architecture and Civil Engineering (SPSUACE). They attracted my interest because of the length of the names on the buildings’ façades. And they were written in Russian with Cyrillic letters. The width of the buildings easily dwarfed the long names. I photographed them with the intent of using a translator to figure out the names when I got back home. Doing that has actually given me a foundation to read and understand some Cyrillic lettering now — and by extension, Russian words.
Bridges of the Neva River
Earlier I mentioned some of the bridges that cross the Neva River. In fact, more than a dozen bridges span the Neva. Some of the other bridges include Bolshoy Okhtinskiy, Troitsky (Trinity), and Dvortsovy (Palace) bridges.
We cruised under the Anichkov Bridge (Anichkov Most), the oldest bridge crossing the Fontanka River. This pink granite bridge is famous for the four horse statues called “The Horse Tamers” at the corners of the structure.
One of the last bridges we crossed under before turning off Fontanka River was the beautiful stone Starokalinkin Bridge (Starokalinkin Most). This one links Bezymyany and Kolomensky Islands. Its most distinctive features are its four towers with an open pavilion design.
During the warmer months, some bridges along the Neva River open at night to let large cargo vessels pass through. It is very beautiful at night when the bridges are illuminated. If you’re lucky enough to be in St. Petersburg in the summer during the famous White Nights, carving out some time to see the bridges open is highly recommended. Just don’t get caught on the wrong side of the bridges when they are raised; you may be stuck there until they are lowered in the early morning. (Natasha told us some of the, um, ‘excuses’ involving open bridges some people use when they don’t want to go home at night.)
During harsher winter months, the Neva River regularly freezes over and becomes unnavigable to watercraft. This means that the bridges can remain down until the ice on the river melts.
Before I knew it, we had circled back to the ‘dock’ where our cruise began. My mind was still spinning from the whirlwind of sights and information we took in. Even though we did see quite a bit, I learned much of what we saw was located relatively close together, a lot of it within walking distance.
Post-trip research helped me to really appreciate just how vital the iconic Neva River is to the history and prospect of St. Petersburg. And after cruising on the Neva River, I understand now why St. Petersburg is called the Venice of the North.
(Originally published 22 September 2020. Updated 26 January 2025.)
Photo credit: Hermitage Bridge from Winter Canal – My wife
