The City on the Sea – meet the projects reclaiming St Petersburg’s waterfront

Rachel South explores local projects focusing on the functionality, aesthetics, and ecological questions of developing embankments and coastal areas.

Since its foundation centuries ago on the icy marshes of the Finnish Gulf, water has been an integral part of St Petersburg. Peter the Great envisaged that people would navigate his nascent naval capital by boat, and the depiction of St Petersburg rising triumphantly above the watery forces of nature was immortalised in Alexander Pushkin’s famous poem The Bronze Horseman. Centuries later, water still governs city life. Winter sees even the widest expanse of the mighty River Neva locked in ice, and the White Nights leave revellers stranded across raised bridges, an image which has become synonymous with St Petersburg itself. And then, of course, there is the local climate – blessed with nearly 250 wet days every year, St Petersburg’s rivers will never run dry. 

Yet for a city characterised as the ‘Venice of the North’, where water represents both its physical and spiritual veins, St Petersburg’s inhabitants are denied access to it. Many believe that the water has been appropriated for the eyes of tourists only, millions of whom flock to the ethereally beautiful embankments each year. The 94 rivers crisscrossing the city are concealed behind busy roads or garages and recreation is restricted to a walk along embankments entombed in granite. The vast expanse of the Finnish Gulf remains trapped behind industrial zones and, despite extensive urban development on St Petersburg’s western shores over the past decade, little attention has been paid to seafront infrastructure or public spaces, forcing people to travel out of town. Local people have founded a number of initiatives to combat the loss of this fundamental part of St Petersburg’s landscape and reclaim their right to water in the city on the sea.

Waterfront – creating a ‘dialogue between the water, the city, and the people’

When Albina Motor moved to St Petersburg in 2014, she encountered a rift in her ‘expectation of reality’, noting the stark contrast between normal life and the tourist experience of the Northern Venice. Despite living a stone’s throw from the River Moyka and the Palace Embankment of the Neva, Albina remarked that the ‘highest level of romance is a trip on a tourist boat’, whereas for residents the dreamy embankments are often ‘noisy, dirty and devoid of romance’, a picture-postcard view scarred by traffic. 

In 2017, the Danish Institute of Culture received a grant from the Nordic Council of Ministers to create a project in the spheres of ecology, art and urbanism, and they asked Albina to be the project’s main partner. She decided to focus on the lack of waterfront spaces in St Petersburg, and with the help of the Street Art Research Institute (of which Albina is a founding member) and an expert team of architects, urbanists, art critics, ecologists and activists, Waterfront was born. Waterfront’s aim is to initiate a ‘dialogue between the water, the city, and the people’ by developing accessible spaces on the Finnish Gulf and embankments and using art as a means of communication. In Albina’s words, the waterfront is a ‘public luxury’ and residents should have the right to influence what happens to it. 

Albina said that contemporary artists could assume the role of journalists, drawing attention to the waterfront problem and posing the uncomfortable but vital questions. With art as the ‘language of communication’, Waterfront kicked off with a 6-month research project led by artists from St Petersburg, Helsinki and Copenhagen. This included a study trip to Scandinavian cities, where Russian artists and researchers learnt how these cities had transformed post-industrial waterfront sites into modern public spaces. The culmination of this project was an exhibition in autumn 2017 at Port Sevkabel, St Petersburg’s brand-new cultural space situated in a former seafront factory. Fourteen artists presented sound-art installations, kinetic art objects, and sculptures related to their research, and the exhibition was accompanied by a forum where officials from Scandinavian cities presented strategies for waterfront development. Noticeably, officials from St Petersburg were absent.

Waterfront’s urban research exhibition at Port Sevkabel, autumn 2017. Images taken from the Waterfront Vkontakte page

The first stage of Waterfront was a resounding success, attracting 2,000 people to the 5-day exhibition and establishing the absence of waterfront spaces as a ‘hot topic’. Albina and her team received another grant to begin the second stage, the Neighbourhood & Community Project, in 2019. From an open-call attracting 120 people, four multidisciplinary teams of 10 participants each were formed to explore how four waterside areas of St Petersburg could be developed. Albina said that the teams’ focus was to grab the attention of local residents, rallying them to ‘occupy the embankments and use them – they’re yours.’  

Waterfront’s Neighbourhood & Community exhibition at Port Sevkabel, autumn 2019, showcasing the projects of the four teams. Image taken from the Waterfront Vkontakte page

Pryazhka Team

For artist Alexandra Kokacheva, curiosity and a deep interest in public art inspired her to join Waterfront. She believed that the interdisciplinary nature of the project made it possible to explore waterfront development from many different angles, including an artistic one. 

Alexandra’s team – which included artists, a director and a carpenter – explored the River Pryazhka which runs through St Petersburg’s Kolomna district. Kolomna’s streets are a neighbourhood of ‘artists, quiet alcoholics and musicians’, where street art merges with industrial heritage still visible today in the silhouettes of dockside cranes, and where a rich ‘pantheon of local heroes’, among them Alexander Blok, Joseph Brodsky, Sergey Shnurov and Viktor Tsoi, have lived. Kolomna was characterised by Gogol as ‘neither a city nor a province’, and the tranquil River Pryazhka simultaneously channels this urban and natural feel. 

The River Pryazhka. Left image taken from the Pryazhka Vkontakte page, photograph taken by Alexandra Kokacheva. Right image courtesy of the author.

Over the course of 8 months, the Pryazhka Team got acquainted with the unique area through its residents and activists, and held discussions at local businesses to explore project ideas. They observed that people love to spend time on the riverbank – fishing, walking dogs, and relaxing on the grass – and discovered the nostalgic rhetoric surrounding Pryazhka’s natural appearance, left untouched by the granite so ubiquitous on St Petersburg’s embankments. In autumn 2019 the team delved into the heritage of Pryazhka and Kolomna, merging history and culture with the present-day space by arranging tours of abandoned buildings and excursions led by local historians and experts from the Street Art Research Institute.

A local curiosity became the focus of one of Pryazhka’s events. Young artists expressed the artistic, poetic and musical heritage of Kolomna through the language of performance in Venera ryadom (Venus is Nearby), which was dedicated to Venus Kolomenskaya, a sculpture close to the river. A well-known resident of Kolomna, known in Soviet times as the ‘harlot of Pryazhka’, Venus has become a kind of 3D street art whose outfits have constantly changed over the decades. She was honoured in a two episode spectacle, which unfolded with a procession from the statue along the embankment and ended with a spoken word and musical epilogue on a bridge over the Pryazhka. 

The performance ‘Venera ryadom’ - riverbank procession and spoken word and musical epilogue. Images taken from the Pryazhka Vkontakte page, photographs taken by Alexandra Kokacheva

Venus Kolomenskaya over the years – sculpture and street art. Images from the Waterfront Vkontakte page, photographs taken by Alexander Kitaev.

Galernaya Gavan Team

For Polina Shtanko, a land real estate analyst, her involvement in Waterfront was personal. Polina lived on Vasilievsky Island for three years and loved walking along the shore of the Finnish Gulf. Yet she was perplexed as to why, in this seaside city, her access to the water was always ‘blocked by garages, grumbling guards, and angry dogs’. After learning about Waterfront Polina immediately signed up and became part of the Galernaya Gavan (Galley Harbour) Team to develop a place close to home – a place where, in her words, her ‘soul lies’. She joined a team of architects, urbanists, artists, designers and PR specialists, most of whom were residents of the island’s seafront Primorskaya district. 

The team’s focus was Galernaya Gavan, a monument of cultural heritage on Vasilievsky Island. It was constructed in 1721 by Domenico Trezzini, famed architect of the Peter and Paul Fortress and Winter Palace, to house the new Russian fleet. Although the harbour fell out of use over the centuries, it remains today an ‘oasis’ of calm in the bustling metropolis, where people can relax on the water at any time of day or night and in any season. Galernaya Gavan’s surroundings tell a story of many eras – luxury apartment blocks, modern mnogoetazhki, monolithic Soviet panelki, and a 19th century water tower, a protected building which supplied the imperial naval weapons plant. 

The harbour in summer and winter. Summer image taken from the Galernaya Gavan Vkontakte page. Winter images courtesy of the author.

Yet as the team discovered, most of the harbour’s residents were unaware and uninterested in its history. Polina and her team believed that by sparking a dialogue between residents and the harbour they could address people’s cultural behaviour and encourage them to be ‘active citizens’, reconnecting with what lies beneath their blocks of flats. 

Skiing and ice fishing on the harbour. Images courtesy of the author.

The Galernaya Gavan Team organised a programme of events from July to October 2019 with local activists and businesses. Many involved children, who almost acted as mediators between the team, the water, and their parents. Children engaged with the marine theme in ceramic painting and drawing masterclasses, and joined the ‘Build Your Harbour’ workshop, where architects and artists introduced them to ecology, recycling, and local history, and helped them to create a waterfront ‘Eco City’ installation from donated recycling. Residents attended lectures on the waterfront, enjoyed kayaking, and joined tours of the harbour. The team collected local peoples’ stories about Galernaya Gavan and transformed them into artwork. 

Open-air drawing classes and ceramic painting, building the ‘Eco City’, and writing stories of the harbour. Images taken from the Galernaya Gavan Vkontakte page

Despite the disruption of the pandemic, 2021 heralds exciting times for Waterfront. Their third stage – Network & Tools – was held over Zoom during the pandemic, and allowed urbanists from other Russian cities, eco-activists in St Petersburg, local businesses and government representatives to share their expertise. An open call in summer 2020 discovered five artists to create public art projects in St Petersburg. Most projects will take place this spring, but Anna Martynenko’s Vodofon was held last October. To experience not just the sights but the ‘unique voice’ of St Petersburg, Anna led an excursion around the city and developed an instrument to listen to the sounds of the Neva. Waterfront have also won a grant from the Dutch Ministry of Culture for the ‘Sea of Orange’ project, which will transform an abandoned beach on the southern shore of the Finnish Gulf. There, the team will create the ‘Dune of Orange’ art object, lead workshops and discussions with residents, and create new recreational spaces.

Anna Martynenko’s Vodofon. The plan for ‘Dune of Orange’ art object. Images taken from the Waterfront Vkontakte page.

Druzya Karpovki – a beacon of collaborative design and tactical urbanism 

Exploring St Petersburg’s second-largest island, Petrogradsky, you lose yourself in a labyrinth of narrow streets rich with cultural and historical landmarks. Venture north past the metro, and you’ll find a beautifully landscaped pedestrianised riverside embankment that wouldn’t look out of place in Scandinavia. This was the result of two years of hard work by local initiative Druzya Karpovki (Friends of Karpovka), and is the first public space in St Petersburg created through tactical urbanism and collaborative design – a unique example of what can come from a dialogue between citizens, experts, and the authorities.

Although Petrogradsky neighbourhood is beloved by local residents, it is often referred to as a ‘concrete jungle’ devoid of green spaces or pedestrianised zones. Flowing perpendicular to the island’s traffic-choked prospekty is the River Karpovka, but the 30,000 residents living within 10 minutes’ walk of its banks cannot enjoy a blissful riverside stroll, and must contend with busy intersections and footpaths which peter out into nothing. In 2017, a group of local activists realised that harnessing the river would transform the island neighbourhood. 

They began by organising a festival Tvoya voda (Your Water) in July 2017, where 2,000 people enjoyed lectures about the Karpovka’s history and the role of water in a metropolis, waterside film screenings, boat trips, street art and performances. Soon followed lectures by Dialog u vody (Dialogue on the Water), a project led by young activists and specialists in urban development, architecture, geography and sociology from all over Russia. Members of various projects finally joined forces to create Druzya Karpovki in autumn 2017.  

Performance at the Tvoya voda festival. Image taken from the Druzya Karpovki Vkontakte page

One of the group’s coordinators, Lera Rumyantseva, made it clear that Druzya Karpovki are not the ‘managers’ of the space, but want to involve as many people as possible. The team discovered that local people wanted an inclusive green space for waterfront relaxation and cultural events, and so they organised festivals, markets, exhibitions and a tea party on the riverbank, and built street furniture and a floating garden. And finally, after receiving government funding at the end of 2018, Druzya Karpovki arranged meetings between architectural bureau Neskuchny Sad and local residents to decide what to do. 

Building the floating garden. Image taken from the Druzya Karpovki Vkontakte page

Street furniture workshop, market and open-air exhibition on the River Karpovka. Images taken from the Druzya Karpovki Vkontakte page.

The Karpovka embankment opened in September 2019. What was once a wasteland nicknamed the ‘death road’ had been transformed into what one resident referred to as ‘the only European-quality public space in St Petersburg’. Complete with street furniture, playgrounds, cycle paths, and some hugely popular swings for adults and kids alike, the embankment is lively in all seasons. The accessible waterfront has a slope down to the river and plenty of benches, and work is ongoing to clean up the water. Nature is plentiful – a boat-shaped vegetable garden (whose community organises planting events, embankment clean-ups, and outdoor picnics with their produce), fruit trees, wildflowers and grasses, and displays where visitors can learn about nature. Street art and furniture honour the waterfront theme, including a huge chalkboard in the shape of a sea creature skeleton and benches in the form of a fish. 

Swings, vegetable garden, and street furniture on the River Karpovka embankment. Photographs courtesy of the author.

Druzya Karpovki are not finished yet. They’ve recently organised a number of public discussions with residents, authorities and Neskuchny Sad to develop two more sites along the River Karpovka as well as an industrial zone on the adjoining Petrovsky Island.

Seeing Waterfront and Druzya Karpovki continue to flourish during the pandemic has been inspiring, and helped me to realise that the world is not as isolated as it can appear. As a resident of St Petersburg myself, I am excited to see how the city will develop over the coming years. Albina summed this up succinctly - ‘it's important for me, because it concerns the place where I live – if we don’t do it, then who will?’

Headshot by Egor Tsvetkov

About the author

Rachel South is a British writer living in St Petersburg. She graduated in Russian Studies from the University of Nottingham, where she specialised in Soviet culture and wrote her dissertation on post-Soviet Russian everyday life as a Western commodity. Rachel has a particular interest in Soviet architecture and in the role of cultural and creative industries in the urban development of St Petersburg. You can find her on Instagram @racheljsouth.