The Shuvalovs were one of the great families of eighteenth-century Russia, and a member of the clan, Ivan Shuvalov, was the favourite of Empress Elizabeth and the patron who helped found Moscow University and the Academy of Arts in the 1750s. Another branch of the family later owned the estate at Pargolovo, on the northern edge of Saint Petersburg, where a palace and landscaped park were laid out with ponds, avenues and pavilions in the nineteenth century. The park is now a public space, with lakes that freeze in winter and a canopy of old trees, and it is a favourite for walks.
Pargolovo itself was once a village of summer houses and wooden villas, and it has been absorbed into the sprawl of the city. Riding here is a city affair, with traffic lights, speed bumps and heavy flows on the main roads, and the best way through is by the side streets early on a weekend morning. On the northern fringe, the roads relax and enter pine forest, and a ride toward the Karelian Isthmus soon feels very different. Autumn colours in the park, with yellow birches reflected in the lakes, are the highlight of the year.
Pargolovo has nearly twelve thousand people, and Parnas, the district next door, has over sixty-six thousand, so supplies are not a concern at all. Everything in the city is within reach, from cafes to repair shops. The label also mentions Lindulovskaya Roshcha, a grove of Siberian larch north of Vyborg, planted from 1738 for ship timber and said to be the oldest planted forest of its kind in Russia. The idea that a navy needed its own forest says something about the ambition of the empire's builders.
Come for a quiet hour in the park rather than a big ride. Park the bike, walk the paths around the lakes and look for the old pavilions among the trees. If you arrive early in the morning, you may have the whole place to yourself, apart from a few dog walkers and a scattering of ducks.