Saint Petersburg/Vasilievsky Island

Vasilievsky Island is an island in Saint Petersburg situated between the Bolshaya Neva and the Malaya Neva, two main distributaries of the river. The population of the district, including the adjacent to Dekabristov Island, separated by the Smolenka river, and smaller islets, is approximately 215,000 people. Around 1715-1725, the eastern part of the island was projected to become the main part of the city. This project was abandoned with the death of Peter the Great, and in the 1730s, the main part of the city shifted to the southern bank of the Neva, but several Petrine Baroque buildings here date from that period and the island has since remained the center of the city's academic life. It is now home to the Academy of Arts, Mining Institute, main campus of Saint Petersburg State University as well as the local branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences with its library and several research institutes and museums. The rectangular grid of streets seen today was originally a grid of canals, filled in after 1767. From the 1730s till mid-19th century the eastern part of the bank of the Malaya Neva hosted the city sea and river port, and, though the port eventually moved away, many buildings still standing there were designed for this purpose. In 1850, the first permanent bridge across the Neva, Blagoveshchensky Bridge, linked the island to the city center.

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Sources: Wikivoyage · Data updated Oct 31, 2026

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