Wednesday Walk along Nevsky Prospect

The weather that day was overcast and gray, but I was lucky - the clouds parted in different directions for a few minutes and I saw clear blue sky. The gloomy winter day became like a joyful spring day. This atmospheric anomaly didn't last long; the clouds returned to their usual places soon, and in another half hour small, wet snow began to fall from the sky.

Employees of the city services have fenced the house on the corner of Nevsky and Vladimirsky avenues with striped ribbons and are dumping snow from the roof of the building. A lot of snow has fallen this year, the snow on the roofs of buildings is becoming dangerous for passersby.

I noticed that the beautiful carved wooden gates were hospitable and decided to look into the courtyard.

It is difficult to determine the age of this gate. It is known that the building changed hands several times, and the courtyard wings were built in 1823-1825. The gates may have appeared then, but they may have remained from previous owners or appeared later. The semi-circular door arches and lion's faces can be seen in an old photograph taken in the early 1900s by an unknown photographer.

In the yard of this house I saw a beautiful terrace decorated with long ice icicles.

A view of the Anichkov Palace complex of buildings opens from the bridge over the Fontanka River.

The corner two-story building with columns has a service purpose, it was first the office, and later the communal services. This is what the building looks like from the opposite side:

And if you turn around, you can see the main facade of the Anichkov Palace:

Anichkov Palace is the oldest building on Nevsky Prospect, it was started to be built in 1741 by order of Empress Elizabeth. The border of the city was at that time along the Fontanka River, and the palace was turned towards the river to decorate the entrance to the city. The Anichkov Palace houses the Palace of Young People's Art now.

I was going to look into the garden of the Anichkov Palace. It's a small but very comfortable garden on the opposite side. But the gate leading to the garden turned out to be locked. So I took a picture of the lattice bars and turned in the direction of the house - past the building of the Drama Theater and down the alley, named after the fable writer Krylov. The alley is very much missing the brave men from the first frames of my story, icicles hanging dangerously over the heads of passersby.

This is my entry for the #WednesdayWalk challenge by @tattoodjay.