Wednesday Walk from the angel bench to the new promenade

Greetings friends, Last week I took a walk in the most touristy parts of the city. This week I decided to take a different type of walk. I walked in places that are not listed in the guidebooks (although some of these places are just as noteworthy as the recognized monuments). I was interested in the changes that are happening right now. There is no such thing as an unchanged urban environment, something is always happening: new monuments appear, dilapidated buildings disappear, mysterious inscriptions and drawings appear on the walls of houses... Some changes are global, they are included in the city development plan, other changes are noticeable only to the most attentive locals.

I started my walk near a new city sculpture. This bronze angel took its place on a bench on the embankment of the Pryazhka River a few months ago. It is one of the latest works by sculptor Roman Shustrov. The angel looks up into the sky and holds a wind-up toy in his hands. Roman Shustrov died of covid-19 in 2020. His workshop was located nearby, on the opposite bank of the river. This is a wonderful sculpture and at the same time it is a memory of the sculptor.

I walked a little further along the waterfront to photograph a gas station. This gas station is not an architectural monument, but nevertheless I decided to preserve it in my photos. It stopped operating a few weeks ago. The entire plot of land, along with the neighboring vacant lot, has been given over to new construction.

The next goal of my walk was the embankment of the Smolenka River, and on the way I turned aside several times to photograph a beautiful gate, graffiti or a mysterious inscription. mysterious inscription. A sign “garage №6” is affixed above the wooden gate. Most garages of this type are converted stables or carriage barns, but some buildings in the early XX century were built in accordance with the latest technological progress, with automobile garages.

The inscriptions on the walls: “The roads are entwined in a tight ball of snakes in love” and “Who are you?”

Eventually I came to the embankment of the Smolenka River. The Smolenka River originates in the Malaya Neva River. Further, beyond the river, there was an industrial enterprise that occupied a large area. Now the strip of land along the Malaya Neva has been freed, and soon there will be an embankment.

Now it is impossible to take a continuous walk along the Malaya Neva River, but I came up to the river several times in different places to see how the construction of the embankment is progressing. The section near Smolenka is just a strip of land for now. Further on there is a section of the embankment, behind a mesh fence, where work is underway and a billboard with information is hanging. Even farther away there is an already finished section of the embankment. Along the water there is a pedestrian path and a bicycle path. So far this section is very short, but in the future the embankment may become a great place for walking.

This is my entry for the #WednesdayWalk challenge by @tattoodjay.