There is probably no such street, square or palace in St. Petersburg that would not be legendary. Apparently, the very atmosphere of this city of mystics and romantics contributes to myth-making. It only takes a strange incident for another one to appear. urban legend. And the places where incidents happen often are literally overgrown with the most incredible, fantastic rumors. And sometimes it is impossible to figure out how these rumors correspond to reality.
Such places, rich in strange and often inexplicable events, include Sennaya Square.
Legends of the Serpent Forest
Sennaya Square is located almost in the very center of modern St. Petersburg at the intersection of Sadovaya Street and Moskovsky Prospekt. Now it is a lively and crowded place, but until the 30s of the 18th century, a forest grew here, rich in mushrooms and berries. However locals they were in no hurry to use his gifts and tried not to go into the forest without special need. The swampy thicket with crooked trees and many snakes was notorious among the townspeople, they spoke of it as a dead place where people disappear.
Strictly speaking, there is nothing surprising in this - the swamp is not the best place for walks. But superstitious people believed that among the crooked trees the entrance to another, terrible world was hidden, which was guarded by snakes.
Whether this was really so, now it is impossible to find out, but the dark aura of the “bad” place was preserved later, when the Sennoy market appeared on the site of the forest, and then the square.
"Womb" of St. Petersburg
The arrangement of the market square for hay trading began in 1737 by order of Empress Anna Ioannovna. The fire at the Sea Market, located near the Palace Square, frightened the city authorities, and it was decided to move the hay trade away from the center.
The snake forest was cut down, Sennaya (future Sadovaya) street was laid to Nevsky Prospekt, and later a large road was built leading to Moscow and Tsarskoye Selo. Merchants and peasants, who brought hay, firewood and products for sale, most often came to St. Petersburg now along it. Sennaya Square served as a kind of "canopy" - the entrance to the city.
And this square was sometimes called the “womb” of St. Petersburg, by analogy with the “Belly of Paris” by Emile Zola, not only because they traded mainly hay and food, but also because of the numerous taverns and drinking establishments. However, these establishments were rather low-class, and a dark audience gathered in them: thieves, swindlers, pimps and card sharps, who feel at home on the Sennaya like a fish in water.
Built in 1765, the Assumption Cathedral, better known as the Spas-on-Sennaya, ennobled the appearance of the square, but did not change the customs of this place. It continued to be the concentration of criminal elements in St. Petersburg. Around the square there were slums, bunkhouses and brothels, and in house number 3 behind the guardhouse there was the famous thieves' den - "Malinnik". It is this Sennaya Square that has remained in history largely thanks to the writers of the 19th century. Stories about her can be found in Dostoevsky's "Crime and Punishment", in the author of "Petersburg Slums" Vsevolod Krestovsky, in Soltykov-Shchedrin. By the way, he wrote: “Sennaya is the only place in the city center where the police do not even require outward decency.”
The mysticism of Sennaya Square
This noisy and lively place, which did not calm down even at night, is nevertheless covered with gloomy legends. The accumulation of evil in its various forms and manifestations, poverty and vices only thickened the mystical atmosphere of the "evil" place.
It was said that unknown forces that have lived here since the time of the Serpentine Forest patronize thieves and murderers. On Sennaya Square, criminals can hide from police persecution, as if having disappeared from this world for a while, and otherworldly entities, without being afraid sunlight, are able to walk around the market in broad daylight.
The spirits of the dead thieves and pimps did not leave Sennaya even after death. It was said that here you can meet ghosts, indistinguishable from living people, who walk along the rows and ask the price of goods. And only after talking with a long-unseen acquaintance, the person realized that he was talking with the dead.
The fact that it was a place of public executions did not improve the situation on the square. Here, "dashing" people were whipped, and the building of the guardhouse, built in 1820, was used to serve sentences for minor offenses. By the way, Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky also had to sit there for violating the “censorship charter”.
Perhaps the dark aura of Sennaya Square is connected not only with the long-dead Snake Forest and concentrated social evil. The fact is that very close on Gorokhovaya Street is one of the most mystical places in St. Petersburg - the Rotunda, which is also called the Devil's Staircase. Many people still believe that there is a portal to another dimension in the unusual front door with tall columns.
At present, slums, bunkhouses and dens have disappeared, and the dark forces of Sennaya Square, it would seem, have disappeared from this world. Although no, no, yes, and you can hear stories about people who disappeared in the Sennaya area, as a rule, they are not very respectable.
By analogy with the "Womb of Paris" is sometimes called the "Womb of St. Petersburg."
In 1753-1765, a significant late baroque monument was erected on Sennaya Square - the Assumption Church (Savior on Sennaya), blown up in 1961. Detached house - guardhouse building(house number 37 on Sadovaya Street), erected in 1818-1820 according to the project of architect V. I. Beretti. An architectural monument of federal significance
Before mid-nineteenth For centuries, on Sennaya Square, persons convicted of robbery, theft and fraud were subjected to public corporal punishment (“commercial executions”) - described by N. A. Nekrasov.
In June 1831, a mass spontaneous popular uprising took place here - the "cholera riot".
In 1883-1886, in the center of the square, according to the project of architect I. S. Kitner and engineers G. von Pauker and O. E. Krel, buildings that have not survived to this day were built hay market.
The districts adjacent to Sennaya Square were traditionally inhabited by the urban poor. So, for example, buildings on the site between modern Moskovsky Prospekt, Efimova Street and the Fontanka River Embankment were called Vyazemskaya Lavra and were among the worst slums in the city.
The life and customs of the inhabitants of the area around Sennaya were repeatedly described by writers, for example, F. M. Dostoevsky (the novel "Crime and Punishment") and V. V. Krestovsky.
In the 1910s, a tram was launched through Sennaya Square (since 2007, traffic on this part of Sadovaya Street has been stopped).
In the 1920s, the slums, dens, and taverns surrounding the square were demolished. In the 1930s, a reconstruction was carried out - the buildings of the Sennoy Market were demolished, and the territory was asphalted and landscaped. During the years of the Leningrad blockade, many buildings on the square were destroyed and damaged.
In 1950, the facades of the northern side of the square received a unified design in the Soviet style. In 1963, the ground lobby of the metro station "Ploshchad Mira" was built on the square. In Leningrad, the square housed Bus Station No. 1 of intercity routes.
In 1991, in connection with the construction of the Sadovaya metro station, an underground passage was arranged under the square. In the same year, the square was given back its historical name, and the Pl.Mira metro station was renamed Sennaya Pl.
In 2003, the square was reconstructed, trade pavilions were built on it, and in memory of the demolished Assumption Church a chapel was built. At the same time, the square was installed Peace Tower, designed by architect Jean-Michel Wilmotte and sculptor Clara Halter. This tower is a kind of gift for the 300th anniversary of St. Petersburg. The tower is a stele, on which transparent semicircular panels with the word "peace" in 50 languages are fixed on both sides. It should be noted that Wilmott and Halter are also the authors of a similar Walls of the World(francais. Mur pour la paix) on in e.
The square is always crowded, three metro lines, tram lines and minibuses intersect here.
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The nearest metro stations are the Sennaya Ploshchad/Spasskaya/Sadovaya interchange hub.
Photo: Alexander Bryullov. 1822
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Sennaya Square has been vegetating in vices and poverty for more than a hundred years. They say that the spirit of the place does not allow to transform it to this day ...
State within a state
Even if you are not from St. Petersburg and do not know anything about its history, then you have probably heard about Sennaya Square, well, at least from school curriculum on literature. Let me remind you that Nekrasov, having entered at six o’clock on the Sennaya, saw how “they beat a woman with a whip // A young peasant woman”, Raskolnikov decides to commit a crime on the Sennaya and publicly repents here, and at Krestovsky in the “Petersburg slums” the square is one of full actors. In general, already from these references it becomes clear that our Sennaya is a very specific place, to put it mildly.
B.Patersen. Hay Square. Fragment. 1799-1801
The Hay market appeared under Catherine II. At that time, Sennaya was the outskirts of the city and a road led out onto it, along which merchants and peasants carried their products for trade. Here they could sell it directly from the cart.
The market officially headed for cheap goods, so beggars and the homeless began to flock here and in the vicinity in the hope of alms, pickpockets hunted here and stolen goods came true. The situation was aggravated by the famous Vyazemskaya Lavra - thirteen interconnected houses that were rented out. I doubt that these buildings were built to be rented out to beggars, thieves and the poor, but the proximity to the Hay Market determined the contingent, and the name "lavra" that was assigned to this place became someone's malicious ironic joke.
Vyazemskaya Lavra was a real state within a state, which sometimes had more than 20 thousand inhabitants. It had its own laws, its own power, its own rules of survival. Most of its inhabitants knew perfectly well where to hide for escaped convicts, forge documents, sell stolen goods, alter stolen clothes, find a cheap prostitute or drink hard. But no one, under any circumstances, was going to share this information with the police. Maybe that's why this little criminal country has existed in the capital in such a dirty and disgusting form for almost a century.
A.S. Lytkin. Trade building of the Hay market and the Church of the Savior in St. Petersburg
It should be noted that not all of the population of Haymarket were criminals. In the same Vyazemskaya Lavra, printing workers, artisans, and bakers rented beds, but, of course, one could only live in these disgusting conditions, in stench, poverty and desolation, only out of complete hopelessness.
Residents of Sennaya divided according to their professional occupations. For example, a very numerous gang of beggars with a strict hierarchy and division of territories; an artel of rag-pickers, engaged, among other things, in a streamlined alteration of stolen things; an artel of torch-bearers who get their bread by accompanying coffins with canopies and torches, which gave the funeral a noble-official shade.
Thanks to the "Petersburg slums" of Krestovsky, "Malinnik" remained in history, which is both a tavern and a brothel (by the way, some sources believe that it was from here that the all-Russian concept of "thieves' raspberries" arose, but I did not find evidence).
About selling love
It must be said that Russian state sample of the XIX century in many respects turned out to be much more advanced than modern Russia. For example, since 1843, prostitution has been legalized. Of course, it's not that the government supported the sexual revolution, it's just that there was a need to somehow stop the spread of syphilis and venereal diseases. Passports were taken away from ladies selling themselves, and in their place the famous yellow tickets were issued, they had to visit a doctor regularly and generally follow all the rules prescribed by law. Brothels in St. Petersburg provided their services to clients with a variety of incomes. Magnificent beauties in chic apartments served wealthy visitors, brothels simply met junior officers, students, people of free professions, completely unassuming brothels were waiting for factory workers to visit. In the Vyazemskaya Lavra, prostitutes of the lowest rank worked. Police round-ups were rare, so there was no need to get a yellow ticket, which means there was no need to visit a doctor. If the famous St. Petersburg camellias greeted their lovers wrapped in silk, here the companions of Sonechka Marmeladova sometimes covered their nakedness only with a dirty towel. Barely grown up vagrant girls, daughters of the degraded residents of the Vyazemskaya Lavra, became prostitutes in the Haymarket. There were also former "workers" of the most expensive brothels, ready to sell themselves for a penny: alcoholism and numerous illnesses can turn a blooming girl into an old woman in a few years. Thanks to the memoirs of Nikolai Sveshnikov, we know the name of one such sufferer, a slum dweller. Sasha Stolbovaya, nicknamed Cork, who looked either 40 or 60 years old, dirty, always drunk, with a gouged eye and a beaten face, worked from her youth in Malinnik, then just in the alleys, and after that she begged from merchants on Sennaya . Out of pity, they threw leftovers to her: herring tails, stumps, rotten vegetables - she collected all this and sold it among the inhabitants of the Vyazemsky Lavra, and that was how she lived.
Fast food for the poor
I will add a couple of touches to make the picture in your imagination even brighter. Many people like to share recipes, watch cooking shows, read restaurant ratings, so I will share the recipe for one of the most popular dishes among the inhabitants of Sennaya. So ... cheek dishes. First, the cheek itself was prepared, for which 50-60 bull heads were lowered into huge cauldrons filled with water, from which lard was boiled. The process continued for about 7-8 hours, until the meat on the bull's head became like a washcloth. Most of the meat was obtained from the cheeks - hence the cheek. The resulting “product” was sent to the so-called glutton row, an analogue of modern fast food. Pies and stews were made from the cheek, and offal dishes were no less popular.
Products, so to speak, not of the first or even second freshness, were also in great demand among buyers: fish with a smell, rotten vegetables and fruits. A special "aroma" came from rotten egg vendors. Women merchants bought spoiled eggs in large quantities, boiled them and sold them individually. The smell that accompanies all these "appetizing" products added its own bright notes to the stench of the Hay Market.
Cholera riot in St. Petersburg. Nicholas I on Sennaya Square. Drawing by A. Sauerweid. 1831
The genius of the place
Of course, such an abscess on the body of the city, and even just a half-hour leisurely walk from the imperial palace, irritated the townspeople and the government. Plans for reorganization, restructuring, and improvement were drawn up constantly (they are still being drawn up to this day), something was put into practice, something was not. Dens, bunkhouses and other "wonderful" establishments were finally demolished in the 1920s, after the war, everything was thoroughly rebuilt, and in 1961 the huge Spas-on-Sennaya Church was blown up in order to build a pavilion of the Ploshchad Mira metro station in its place. ”(which is now called“ Sennaya ”and the visor of which collapsed in 1999, killing 7 people). After the transformations in the country in 1991, Sennaya Square was again filled with stalls, stalls, and with them vagrants, homeless people, thieves and scammers returned. In 2003, the authorities made another attempt to ennoble the long-suffering square, demolishing the stalls and putting up cute pavilions that were supposed to house cafes, flower shops and other bourgeois joys - they planted trees in some places, put up stylized benches, and decorated the middle of the square with the Peace Tower, a gift from France to the 300th anniversary of the city. This monument of Russian-French friendship did not survive the first, one summer cracking from abnormal heat, the pavilions were filled with barbecue and karaoke with their favorite folk repertoire, and drunken citizens usually find refuge on the benches. Of course, what we see now is clearly much more pleasant than what Petersburgers had to watch a hundred years ago, but the whole secret is that no matter how you dress up the old woman, you won’t be able to pass her off as a girl - no matter how you remake Sennaya Square , it retains its essence. Therefore, very often in articles about her, the genius (or spirit) of the place is mentioned, which does not allow Sennaya to be transformed in such a way as to completely erase her bright objectionable individuality.
Now they are actively discussing plans for the next transformation. Firstly, the demolished temple haunts. An idea arose to restore only the belfry, but even people who are absolutely not interested in religious issues understand that a belfry without a church is a very strange idea. For the full restoration of the temple, the pavilion of Sennaya Square will have to be moved, which is very expensive and laborious. Second, something needs to be done about shopping center"Peak", the main staircase of which now rests directly on the end of the newly built pavilion of the Spasskaya metro station, which looks, frankly, ridiculous. And finally, we need to solve the problem of the huge number of passengers using trams, minibuses, metro. It is planned to widen the roadway and remove trade pavilions. Will it be possible, thanks to the next transformations, to turn Sennaya into a cozy European square? I bet on Sennaya and her rebellious spirit, for which we love her.
The concept of the reconstruction of Sennaya Square
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Sennaya Square in St. Petersburg. An architectural ensemble formed by the intersection of a large number of streets and the facades of buildings located on them. One of the busiest city squares.
The appearance of the square was associated with the construction of a new market, which, due to the threat of fires, the city authorities decided to move away from the center of St. Petersburg. At first, the square was called Bolshoy or Konnaya, Sennaya Square received its current name in late XVIII century due to the fact that hay, straw and firewood were sold at this place. In 1952, Sennaya Square was renamed Peace Square, and in 1992 it was returned to its original historical name.
The main road led to Sennaya Square, along which merchants traveled to St. Petersburg - here they stopped and traded in the goods they brought. This food market was the cheapest and most crowded in the city, here people bought and sold from the ruins, from wagons and carts, and the peasants did not pay for the right to trade.
This place in St. Petersburg in the past was considered the most terrible area in the city, slums, dens and taverns were located here and the city poor lived, and the cruel customs of the area around Sennaya were repeatedly reflected in literary works- for example, F. M. Dostoevsky, V. V. Krestovsky and N. A. Nekrasov.
In 1831, an event took place on Sennaya Square, which went down in history as a “cholera riot”, when the poor were going to destroy the central cholera hospital, and they were pacified by the arrival of Emperor Nicholas I.
Until 1961, the main dominant of the square was the Assumption Church (Church of the Savior on Sennaya), built with the money of the merchant Savva Yakovlev, but this significant late baroque monument was demolished in the middle of the 20th century. Now options for restoring the temple are being considered, and a memorial chapel is located in its former place.
In the 1950s, the facades of buildings overlooking Sennaya Square received a unified design in the Soviet style.
Sennaya Square is the intersection of several traffic flows at once, three metro lines, tram and bus routes converge here. Because of the crowds, and by analogy with the "womb of Paris", it is often called the "womb of St. Petersburg."
Note to tourists:
A visit to Sennaya Square will be of interest to tourists interested in the architecture of the 19th-20th centuries, and can also become one of the points of the excursion program while exploring neighboring attractions that are part of the architectural ensemble - the building of the Guardhouse, tenement houses Ignorant, a chapel. In addition, next to Ostrovsky Square are the Church of Alexander Nevsky.
The name "Sennaya Square" is not original. There are such names in Kyiv and Odessa, and in translation into various languages - in many cities of Europe. For a long time, fodder, including hay, was traded in these areas. Hence the name of the markets. And then the squares were named after them. Of course, now they do not sell either hay or oats. And there are no markets for them now. But the names remain. In this article we will get acquainted with Sennaya Square, which is located in St. Petersburg. What is located on the site of this oldest market in the city on the Neva?
History of the square
In fact, the oldest bazaar in St. Petersburg was not located here. And it was called "Marine". But in 1736-1737, large-scale fires took place in the city. The entire Morskaya Sloboda burned out, and with it the market. Then the government ordered to move the place of trade closer to the outskirts, beyond where Moskovsky Prospekt is now located, there was a big road. Merchants and peasants who wanted to sell their products to the townspeople followed it to St. Petersburg. And at the gates of the city, the authorities ordered to cut down the forest and equip the place of trade. This market was first called the Big Market, and then the Horse Market, since its specialization gradually crystallized - the sale of fodder. The name "Sennaya Square" appeared already at the end of the 18th century, when houses began to appear around the marketplace. Then the specialization of the market narrowed. Now they began to trade hay, firewood and straw on it.
"Belly of St. Petersburg"
The city gradually grew. AT early XIX centuries, Sennaya Square was no longer a suburb. But since the market was considered cheap and crowded (the peasants did not pay a tax on trade), the poor settled here. They traded hay and firewood from the ruins, from carts. The square was surrounded by miserable shacks, dirty dens, cheap taverns. The atmosphere of this area was similar to the world described by Zola in The Belly of Paris, but without the gloss of the French capital. The life of Sennaya Square in Fyodor Dostoevsky reflected in his novel Crime and Punishment. Since petty swindling by merchants and pickpocketing flourished in the market, the authorities immediately arranged a place of punishment - as a warning to the rest. Those caught in the hot were beaten with whips and whips in front of all the people. And later they began to punish runaway serfs there. In 1831, a cholera riot was forcefully suppressed on Sennaya Square, since the epidemic manifested itself more in the unsanitary conditions of the local slums. All attempts by the authorities to equip the area were unsuccessful. In the 1880s, four pavilions for trade were erected here. But the district was still synonymous with slums, stinking rooming houses, brothels and suspicious taverns for Petersburgers.
Attractions in Sennaya Square (St. Petersburg)
It seems that it is possible for a tourist to watch in this place, which for a long time was a firewood market, surrounded by the shacks of the poor? But there are several buildings on the square worthy of attention. The guardhouse is the oldest building that has survived to this day. It was built in the market to maintain order. According to the documents, Fyodor Dostoevsky himself was imprisoned. In the writer's novel Crime and Punishment, many episodes take place on Sennaya Square. In a tavern near her, Raskolnikov hears about an old usurer, and a murder plan is born in him. On the same square, repentance comes to him, and he almost confesses to the crime he has committed, kneeling in the middle of the Haymarket. But the local people, who are used to such tricks, do not notice this.
Church of the Savior
But the most significant attraction of this place is the Sennaya Ploshchad metro station (St. Petersburg). This building has a long history. It is older than the city subway. As you know, no market in Russia could do without a church, or at least a chapel. There, the sellers lit a candle for profitable trading. There was a similar wooden temple at the Hay Market. In 1753, the wealthy merchant Savva Yakovlev ordered the Russian architect Andrey Kvasov to build a large stone church on the site of a small church. Built in 1765, the temple was a vivid example of the late Baroque. Five-headed, light and airy, it could accommodate up to five thousand people. The church was rebuilt three times, but it retained its baroque appearance. The temple was spared by the bombing of German aircraft, but Soviet authority treated him worse than the invaders. The fact is that in 1961 the church was blown up, and the lobby of the metro station was built in its place.
How to get to Sennaya Square
Naturally, it is easier to get to the "womb of Peter" by subway. The metro station (blue line) goes directly to the square. In addition, the lobby is a kind of sad historical landmark. After the revolution, the market was called Oktyabrsky, and in the 30s it was completely liquidated. In 1991, the former name was returned to the place (instead of Peace Square - Sennaya Square). Once in the center there was a stele donated by the French for the 300th anniversary of the city. But now it has been dismantled. Sennaya Square can also be reached by land transport. These are tram number 3 and buses number 49 and 181.
