SENATE SQUARE

Between St. Isaac's Cathedral and the Neva lies this large square, formerly Decembrists' Square, the home of Falconet's famous Bronze Horseman statue. The statue, commissioned by Catherine the Great in honor of Peter the Great, is inscribed on the sides in Latin and Russian "To Peter the First from Catherine the Second." The piece of granite upon which the statue rests was a favorite of Peter the Great. Previously located in Lahta on the Gulf of Finland, Peter affectionately named it "Thunder" and from it he used to observe the surroundings. Catherine had it brought by barge to St. Petersburg specifically to serve as the base for this statue. This monument more than any other has come to symbolize the city of St. Petersburg and it was a main character in both Pushkin's mini-epic about this city, The Bronze Horseman, and the symbolist Andrei Bely's surreal novel, Petersburg.

West of the Bronze Horseman stand the former Senate and Synod buildings which now house historical archives. Across from them, to the east of the statue, is the Admiralty, one of Petersburg's first buildings. Senate Square was the sight of the ill- fated Decembrists' uprising in 1825. This event earned the square a new name during the socialist era as the Decembrists were canonized in communist propaganda as visionaries and precursors of socialism, which is about as historically sound as claiming that Brezhnev's precursor was Elvis.

Metro: Nevsky Prospekt then a twenty minute walk or trolleys 5, 14 or 22 to St. Isaac's Square.