Frosty Sunny Day: Walk to the Sphinxes

One of my favourite city embankments is the Sphinx embankment. Last year this embankment was closed for renovation and you couldn't walk along it - you could only look at it from afar. The terrace that runs down to the water and serves as a summer pier for pleasure boats was repaired. This terrace is a little further upstream than the sphinxes, but the whole section of the embankment was closed. When the renovation was over and the fence was removed, I immediately went for a walk along one of my favourite routes on the Neva river embankment.

The day before it snowed, which completely covered the new pavement. The day was frosty, and the water in the river was covered with a thick layer of ice. Even 15-20 years ago, walking on the ice of the Neva was a common thing. I remember how we used to cross rivers on the ice to shorten the way from one bank to the other. But now it is impossible to cross from one bank of the Neva to the other on ice, icebreakers regularly pass through the centre of the river and the fairway does not have time to re-freeze.

It is possible to take a little walk on the ice near the shore. Several paths in the snow have already been laid, and people go out on the ice in search of new impressions and unusual angles. I also took the opportunity to look at the sphinxes from an unusual angle, but I didn't go far from the shore. In frosty weather the ice on the surface of rivers is such a strong covering that in the XIX century entrepreneurs even laid a special tram line that ran on the ice of the Neva. However, it was a forced decision.

The problem was that the horse-railway owners were monopolists, and they made every effort to try to keep the new electric transport off the city streets. But an unexpected way out of the situation was found. The entrepreneurs took advantage of the fact that the concession concerned city streets - and the surface of the river was not formally a street. Engineers calculated the project of laying trams along the river bed, got a positive result, and the project was implemented. The ice served not only as a strong bridge, but also as an important structural element - sleepers, rails and poles for the tramway contact network were cut directly into the ice. The ice tram operated for 15 years, from 1895 to 1910. Of course, it was a seasonal transport - the tram started its work in January and finished in March.

I remembered about the ice tram when I continued my walk along the embankment. I was walking towards the Palace Bridge and soon found myself in front of the Bronze Horseman monument. The monument is located on the opposite bank of the Neva, and on this bank there is a granite book with carved lines from Alexander Pushkin's poem "The Bronze Horseman". The embankment in this place forms a small terrace. It was preserved from the time when the St Isaac's pontoon bridge was located here. The St Isaac's Bridge worked only in summer and was completely dismantled in winter. After the construction of permanent bridges across the Neva, the need for this temporary crossing disappeared. But one of the first Ice Tram lines was built here.