8. The spite of Vassilievsky Island.

The spite is a narrow in the south-eastern park of Vassilievsky Island washed by two branches of the Neva-the Big Neva and the Small Neva.From the Neva you can see the majestic panorama of the bridges and embankments, the Peter and Paul Cathedral, the Admiralty and the Spit of the Vassilievsky Island.

According to the Peter 1’s plan the new capital was to become a sea fortress and at the same time a trading port. At first the city center started to take shape on the Petersburg side, but the port near the Peter and Paul fortress could not develop because of the shallowness of the Neva at that place. Then the tsar chose Vassilievsky Island and its eastern end.

Domenico Trezzini planned to have a square here and build dwelling houses along the curve of the shore.

From the west the square was bordered by the long building of Twelve Collegiums. Behind it he wanted to dig a canal to join the Big and Small Nevas (from North to South),and from the West to East the navigable Big Canal. It divided the Island into two unequal parts.

In the southern part the main square was to be built. The canal ended in a harbor. Near it a magnificent church was to be built.

On the northern side, on the bank of the Small Neva, there were Mytny and Gostiny (Guest-meaning “merchant”here) yards with dwelling houses. Myto is a tax was collected. All the buildings ih Trezzini’s plane were completed except for the church and the canals.

On twenty years there were erected on the Spite the buildings of Twelve Collegiums (1722-1742), Kunstkammer (1718-1734), Novobirzhevoy Guest Yard (1722-1735) and the palace of tsaritsa Praskovia Fyodorovna (the wife of Peter 1’s brother Ivan) and other buildings.

The seaport settled down well on the Spite. Dozens of ships and boats moved people and goods across the water.

In 1781 the stock Exchange-building began to be constructed here designed by Giacomo Quarenghi. But its façade looked on to the Winter Palace and did not fit in with the ensemble of the square. In four years the building was dismantled.

A Stock Exchange is a place where financial and trade deals are made. The project of the new Stock Exchange was developed by the French architect Jean Francois Thomas de Thomon. It was built in 1804-1816.The grand edifice was built in the style of Ancient Greek temples.The façade’s attic is decorated by the sculpture group “Neptune with Two Rivers”. On the other side of the building there’s another sculptural group-“Navigation with Mercury and Two Rivers”(Mercury is the god of trade).The sculptures’ allegorical meaning is the connection between the Stock Exchange building and trade and also water.

Designed by the same Thomas de Thomon two rostral columns lighthouses were included in the spit of vassilievsky Island. The columns appeared on the spit in 1810.One served as a lighthouse for the ships in the Small Neva, the other showed the way into Big Neva. The columns are decorated with rostrumns. At the base of both columns are seated figures:2 male and 2 female made of pudozh stone. It is thought that they symbolize Russian rivers-Volga, Dnieper, Volkhov and Neva.

On both side of the Stock exchange buildings are the southern and northern warehouse. They were built in 1826-1832 (architect Ivan Lukini) in classical style and fit in well with the ensemble of the square. Nowadays the Zoological Museum is situated in the southern warehouse.

Behind the northern warehouse in close symmetry with the Kunstkammer building (in relation to the Spite ensemble) is the Customs building (1829-1832,architect Ivan Lukini).Customs is official body regulating export and import and collecting dyties. The building is in the classical style, its main façade looks on the Small Neva. Since 1927 the Institute of Russian Literature (Pushkin House) has been situated here.

Another part of the ensemble is the main building of the Academy of Sciences, situated between the Kunstkammer and the Twelve Collegiums buildings.