Why this ride
From Pushkin it runs 117 km to Pushkin; allow about 2 h 25 of riding. On the way it passes Volkhonskoe Highway, The Monastery Troitse-Sergieva Pustin, The English Park and Oranienbaumsky Springboard.
CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
The Otdelny Park and Oranienbaumsky Springboard
Plan this ride
- Recorded distance
- 117 km
- Riding-time estimate
- 2 h 25
- 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.
Scenic road chapters
Saint Petersburg Imperial Shore
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For about 14 km this is Saint Petersburg Imperial Shore, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
Chapter facts
- Length
- 14 km
- Named road
- Saint Petersburg Imperial Shore
Waypoint introductions and full write-ups
1. The Otdelny Park
Pavlovsk and Pushkin sit side by side on the plain south of Saint Petersburg, and both grew from the imperial taste for country palaces. Pushkin was once Tsarskoye Selo, the Tsar's Village, where Catherine the Great had a palace of blue and white with a facade that stretches for hundreds of metres, and where the Amber Room once stood. Pavlovsk was a smaller palace for her son Paul, set in one of the largest landscape parks in Europe. The name means separate or detached, and it points to a part of the landscape set apart from the main royal grounds.
Read the complete The Otdelny Park write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
The Otdelny Park is where the day begins. Next is Volkhonskoe Highway.
2. Volkhonskoe Highway
The Volkhonskoe Highway is not a scenic mountain road but a historic route on the southern edge of Saint Petersburg, running out from the city towards Gorelovo and the old road to Krasnoye Selo. It belongs to the network of eighteenth and nineteenth century highways that linked the capital with the imperial residences and military camps to the south and west, and it is included in the wider protected area of the historic centre of Saint Petersburg and its related monuments. What you see today is a mix of suburban growth, open fields and stretches of tree-lined road, with the ghosts of history underneath.
Read the complete Volkhonskoe Highway write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Volkhonskoe Highway comes up about 16 km into the recorded legs. Next is The Monastery Troitse-Sergieva Pustin.
3. The Monastery Troitse-Sergieva Pustin
On the southern shore of the Gulf of Finland, between St Petersburg and Peterhof, the old road runs past a string of palaces and estates that the Russian elite built in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries to be near the sea and the court. Among them, near Strelna, stands the Trinity-Sergius Hermitage, a monastery founded in the eighteenth century as a dependency of the great Trinity Lavra of St Sergius near Moscow. It is part of the wide UNESCO listing of St Petersburg's historic centre and the monuments around it.
Read the complete The Monastery Troitse-Sergieva Pustin write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
about 32 km into the recorded legs you reach The Monastery Troitse-Sergieva Pustin. Next is The English Park.
4. The English Park
Everybody who comes to Peterhof heads for the fountains, the Grand Cascade and the gilded Samson tearing open the lion's jaws, and almost nobody walks the few hundred metres west into the English Park. That is their loss. Catherine the Great, who found Peter the Great's straight avenues and clipped hedges old-fashioned, had this park laid out from 1779 by the English gardener James Meader, in the natural landscape style then sweeping Europe: a chain of ponds, meadows, clumps of oak and lime, and paths that wander rather than march. It belongs to the World Heritage Site covering the historic centre of Saint Petersburg and its ring of palaces and estates.
Read the complete The English Park write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
The English Park, about halfway. Next is Oranienbaumsky Springboard.
5. Oranienbaumsky Springboard
The Oranienbaum Springboard is not a single building but a piece of ground, and once you know the story the low woods and fields south of the Gulf of Finland look entirely different. In September 1941, as German and Finnish forces closed the ring around Leningrad, a pocket of coast around Oranienbaum, today's Lomonosov, held out. It was cut off from the city by land, supplied across the water and under the guns of Kronstadt, and it never fell. In January 1944 the Second Shock Army broke out of this pocket as one jaw of the offensive that finally lifted the siege.
Read the complete Oranienbaumsky Springboard write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Oranienbaumsky Springboard sits at 68 km, about halfway. Next is back through The English Park.
6. back through The English Park
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete The English Park write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
back through The English Park comes up about 70 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through The Monastery Troitse-Sergieva Pustin.
7. back through The Monastery Troitse-Sergieva Pustin
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete The Monastery Troitse-Sergieva Pustin write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
about 84 km into the recorded legs you reach back through The Monastery Troitse-Sergieva Pustin. Next is back through Volkhonskoe Highway.
8. back through Volkhonskoe Highway
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Volkhonskoe Highway write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
back through Volkhonskoe Highway, late in the day. Next is The Otdelny Park.
9. The Otdelny Park
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete The Otdelny Park write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
The route ends here after 117 km.
Leg by leg
The Otdelny Park to Volkhonskoe Highway
The Otdelny Park → Volkhonskoe Highway is 16 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Volkhonskoe Highway to The Monastery Troitse-Sergieva Pustin
Volkhonskoe Highway → The Monastery Troitse-Sergieva Pustin is 16 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
The Monastery Troitse-Sergieva Pustin to The English Park
The Monastery Troitse-Sergieva Pustin → The English Park is 14 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
The English Park to Oranienbaumsky Springboard
The English Park → Oranienbaumsky Springboard is 12 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Oranienbaumsky Springboard to back through The English Park
Oranienbaumsky Springboard → back through The English Park is 12 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through The English Park to back through The Monastery Troitse-Sergieva Pustin
back through The English Park → back through The Monastery Troitse-Sergieva Pustin is 14 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through The Monastery Troitse-Sergieva Pustin to back through Volkhonskoe Highway
back through The Monastery Troitse-Sergieva Pustin → back through Volkhonskoe Highway is 17 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Volkhonskoe Highway to The Otdelny Park
back through Volkhonskoe Highway → The Otdelny Park is 16 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.