Railway Saint Petersburg - Pavlovsk and Southern battery No 2
Plan this ride
Recorded distance
194 km
Riding-time estimate
3 h 06
Journey
Recorded itinerary
Distance and timing basis
Ordered leg totals agree within rounding. Stop distances are approximate sums of rounded legs. Stops, delays, approach and any separate return travel add time. Basis: producer-declared routed record.
Reading history stays on this device. My road watch requires a separate selection; opening it does not subscribe this ride.
Distance and riding time are measured on the routed road. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
From Shushary it runs 194 km to Shushary; allow about 3 h 06 of riding. On the way it passes Dudergof, Ropshinskoe Highway, Southern battery No 2 and back through Ropshinskoe Highway. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Scenic road chapters
Railway Saint Petersburg - Pavlovsk → Dudergof
25 km through ground somebody thought worth listing. The road passes it rather than bypassing it — speed drops and stays down. Park rather than crawl through.
Chapter facts
Length
34 km
Saint Petersburg Imperial Shore
For about 30 km this is Saint Petersburg Imperial Shore, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it. Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast.
Chapter facts
Length
30 km
Named road
Saint Petersburg Imperial Shore
Waypoint introductions and full write-ups
1. Railway Saint Petersburg - Pavlovsk
Pavlovsk station has a story that every Russian railway enthusiast can tell. The line from Saint Petersburg to Tsarskoye Selo opened in the late 1830s, the first public railway in the country, and it was soon extended to Pavlovsk, where a grand station building became a place of concerts and summer entertainment. Johann Strauss the younger came to conduct there in the nineteenth century, and the rich of the capital rode out in their finery to hear him. The railway still runs, though the trains are electric and the concert hall has long gone quiet.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Railway Saint Petersburg - Pavlovsk is where the day begins. Next is Dudergof.
2. Dudergof
South-west of St Petersburg, the flat land of the Neva lowland rises unexpectedly into a pair of wooded hills, the Duderhof heights, the highest ground for many kilometres around. Their name comes from Finnish, and they have long been a landmark, used for military observation since the eighteenth century and as a summer retreat for the people of the capital. In the nineteenth century, the imperial army held its summer manoeuvres around nearby Krasnoye Selo, and the officers' villas and parade grounds became part of the social life of St Petersburg.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Dudergof comes up about 34 km into the recorded legs. Next is Ropshinskoe Highway.
3. Ropshinskoe Highway
Ropshinskoe Highway is the road that leaves the Gulf of Finland behind at Peterhof and climbs gently south towards Ropsha, and for a ride that starts and ends here it is a good place to look at a map and understand the ground. You are on the edge of the Izhora upland, a low limestone step above the coast. It never looks like much from the saddle, a few tens of metres of rise through birch and pine, but in this flat country that step decided who could see whom, and that mattered enormously in the last century.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
about 64 km into the recorded legs you reach Ropshinskoe Highway. Next is Southern battery No 2.
4. Southern battery No 2
Kotlin Island sits in the middle of the Gulf of Finland like a cork in a bottle, and Peter the Great knew it. He seized this stretch of coast from Sweden in 1703 and almost at once began fortifying the island to guard the new capital, Saint Petersburg, which lay at the head of the gulf. Over the next two centuries a ring of forts and batteries grew up on islands, shoals and the shore, and Kronstadt became the home port of the Baltic Fleet. The batteries named in these ride titles, Southern and Northern, belong to that defensive system.