Pavement

Categories / City Services/Housing and Communal Services
PAVEMENT. In the early 18th century, pedestrian pavements in St. Petersburg developed out of wooden planked roadways. In the mid 18th century, wooden pavements appeared; in the late 18th century came stone pavements made of limestone slabs, mined at the Putilovskaya Volost of the Schlisselburg Disrict ("putilovskie slabs"). Slabs in an area of one square meter were laid in single or double rows, and raised above the roadway by half a meter. Pavements had cobblestone slopes for water flow. The width of pavements ranged from 1.5 to 2 arshins (about 1.5 meters). Such pavement had survived through the 1960s on a number of streets. Some pavements were laid with granite flags. The first stone pavement appeared on Nevsky Prospect in the 1780s, on the stretch from Anichkov Bridge to Bolshaya Morskaya Street. From 1816, pavements along main streets were made exclusively from stone (on the city's outskirts and in villages, wooden pavements remained until the early 20th century). In the early 19th century, pavements were partitioned off from roadways by granite or cast-iron pedestals, which were placed at the distance of 2 sazhens from one another, and at the edges of entrances to courtyards (sometimes old gun barrels were used instead of pedestals). Along the pavements there were merchant stands, as well as fire- and spray-hydrants. From the 1930s, pavements, like roadways, were asphalted. In the 1990s, St. Petersburg pavements were laid with decorative stones (Belinskogo Street, Razyezzhaya Street and other streets). In 2002, the pavement along Nevsky Prospect (from Anichkov Bridge to the Admiralty) was paved with granite slabs.

Reference: Засосов Д. А., Пызин В. И. Из жизни Петербурга 1890-1910-х гг. Л., 1991. С. 22-30; Прогулки по Невскому проспекту в первой половине XIX века: Сб. / Сост. А. М. Конечный. СПб., 2002. С. 134 -136, 286-288.

Y. N. Kruzhnov. Belinskogo St./Saint Petersburg, city
Bolshaya Morskaya St./Saint Petersburg, city
Nevsky prospect/Saint Petersburg, city
Razyezzhaya St./Saint Petersburg, city
Прогулки по Невскому проспекту в порвой половине XIX века: Сб. / Сост. А. М. Конечный. СПб., 2002
Засосов Д. А., Пызин В. И. Из жизни Петербурга 1890 - 1910-х гг. Л., 1991 Anichkov Bridge
Admiralty
1817