A walk from St Isaac's Cathedral to the Academic Chapel

The best time of year in our city is late spring and early summer. I went for this walk on one of the sunny warm days at the end of May. The city was decorated for the holiday, flags were flying in the square near St Isaac's Cathedral. The eagle on a yellow background is the flag of Emperor Peter the Great. The birthday of Emperor Peter the Great is celebrated in early June. The wind was quite strong and it was not very easy to photograph the flag so that it was clearly visible. I took a whole series of shots with this subject, and finally waited for the right moment. To the left is the flag of St Petersburg, but you can't see it well. Both flagpoles are decorated with a golden ship, it is one of the symbols of our city.

I went to the far border of the square in front of St Isaac's Cathedral in order to photograph St Isaac's Cathedral in one of the most popular angles. Probably, every tourist who has visited our city has such a shot. Well, this angle has not become worse because it has been repeated countless times! Lilacs bloomed in the park, and soon I was distracted from the architectural view and started admiring the flowers.

A stage and rows of seats in front of the stage were being assembled on Palace Square. A concert was planned. I didn't stay on Palace Square for long, instead I turned to the embankment of the Moika River. The purpose of my walk that day was to visit the courtyards of the Academic Chapel. I learnt from the city news that several street exhibitions are being organised in the courtyards of the Chapel. The Academic Chapel is one of the centres of musical art. The complex of buildings that houses the concert hall, rehearsal rooms, and exhibition spaces is located on the embankment of the Moika River. The main courtyard of the Chapel is a kurdoner, which is separated from the embankment by a beautiful fence. On Sundays there is music in this courtyard - at exactly noon a window opens and musicians give a small concert. These concerts continue throughout the warm season, with only a pause in winter.

At the back of this courtyard you can see an archway that leads to the next courtyard, and then through a system of courtyards you can enter the neighbouring street. These courtyards have long since become like another city street, and many residents and tourists choose this route if they are in a hurry to attend a concert or want to take a shortcut from Mikhailovsky Garden to the Hermitage. Here you can find several cosy corners - small cafes, art galleries, a perfume studio and other interesting shops.

One of the shop windows turned out to be occupied by the skeleton of a real mammoth. Usually you expect to see such rarities in a special museum - for example, in the Museum of Palaeontology. The palaeontological museum is located on Vasilyevsky Island, and dinosaurs and mammoths are found there. But this time one of the exhibits has moved closer to the audience, and any random passer-by can see this ancient piece. opposite, in a small courtyard, you can see old poster bollards - this is part of some historical reconstruction, but it is not working now.

In the next courtyard there was an exhibition of tools used in one of the factories in Siberia. All these exhibits came from the ancient village of Suzun. In the XVIII century a copper smelting plant and a mint were built in this settlement. Now on the territory of the old factory there is a museum complex.

I carefully read the explanations on the stands. Perhaps, I myself would not have realised how some of these tools were used. A huge hammer - a special device for working with copper ingots. A complex structure with a large wooden wheel was used for grinding coal and limestone. Nearby is a press used to cut round coins from strips of copper.