Nowhere does the street life of St. Petersburg display itself to better effect than in the Nevskoi Prospekt. This magnificent street extends from the Alexander Nevskoi Monastery to the Admiralty, a distance of four versts. Towards the end it makes a slight bend, but throughout the greater part of its length it is perfectly straight. It intersects all the rings of the city ; the suburbs of the poor, the showy regions of commerce, and the sumptuous quarters of the aristocracy. A walk along the whole length of this street, is one perhaps as interesting as any that can be made in St. Petersburg. Starting from the extreme end, where a monastery and a cemetery remind us of death and solitude, we first arrive at low little wooden houses, which lead us to a cattle-market, where around the spirit-shops may be seen swarms of noisy singing Russian peasants, presenting a picture not unUke what may daily be seen in the villages of the interior. A Httle farther on the houses improve in appearance ; some are even of stone, and boast of an additional floor ; the houses of public entertainment are of a better description, and shops and warehouses are seen similar to those of the small provincial towns. Next follow some markets and magazines for the sale of invalided furniture and superannuated apparel, which, having spent their youth in the service of the central quarters, are consigned in old age to the mercy of the suburbs. The houses, in the old Russian fashion, are painted yellow and red, and every man we meet displays a beard of venerable length, and a yet longer caftan. A little farther on, and we see a few isvoshtshiks who have strayed by chance so far from their more central haunts ; a shaven chin and a swallow-tailed coat may be seen at intervals, and here and there a house assumes something like an air of stateliness and splendour. On arriving at the bend already mentioned, the huge gilt spire of the Admiralty is descried at a distance, floating apparently over the intervening mist. We cross a bridge, and begin to feel that we are in a mighty city. The mansions rise to three, and even to four stories, the inscriptions on the houses become larger and more numerous, carriages and four become more frequent, and every now and then the waving plume of a staffoflicer dashes by. At length we arrive at the Fontanka Canal, cross the Anitshkof Bridge, and the Palace of Count B. announces at once that we have entered the aristocratic quarter of the capital. From this bridge to the Admiralty is what may be called the fashionable part of the Prospekt, and as we advance the bustle and the throng become greater and greater. Carriages-and-four at every step ; generals and princes elbowing through the crowd ; sumptuous shops, imperial palaces, cathedrals and chiurches of all the various rehgions and sects of St. Petersburg.
The scene in this portion of the street, at about midday, may challenge comparison with any street in the world, and the splendour of the spectacle is enhanced by the magnificence of the decorations. This part of the street, though fully an Enghsh mile in length, does not contain more than fifty houses, each of which, it may easily be inferred, must be of colossal magnitude. Most of these buildings are the property of the several churches that border the street — the Dutch, the Catholic, the Armenian, and others, that received from Peter the Great large grants of land, of little value probably when first bestowed, but from which, as they are now in the heart of the city, splendid revenues are at present derived.
The street from the Anitshkof Bridge to the Admiralty is the favourite promenade with the beau monde of St. Petersburg. The buildings are magnificent, the equipages roll noiselessly over the wooden pavement of the centre, and the trottoirs on each side are broad and commodious. The people you meet are civil, and quarrels and disputes are never heard. The lower classes, from their childhood, are taught to behave respectfully to their more fortunate fellow-men, and, besides, the Slavonian is by nature more ductile and better rounded off than we of the Saxon race, who carry so many corners and crotchets about with us, that we need be careful, when we move through the streets, that we do not entangle ourselves with those we meet. The northern, being the sunny, is the favourite side of the street for the promenaders, and on that side, accordingly, are the most magnificent shops.