Beautiful Sunday in Lopukhinsky Garden and Mooncats Street

When we saw +22℃ on the street thermometers in March, we began to expect a hot summer soon. We are expecting the onset of summer days even now, in early July. I often wake up to the sound of rain, and I still haven't put away the warm winter blanket in the closet. It's summer, but summer is cold and rainy. So this time the weather was cool and overcast. But at least it wasn't raining! I decided to go for a walk to Lopukhinsky Garden and Pharmacy Island.

Lopukhinsky Garden is a small but very cozy garden that occupies the northern section of Pharmacy Island. In the XVIII century on Pharmacy Island was located Pharmacy vegetable garden, it was forbidden to settle here people who had nothing to do with medicine. Later, the territory of the “Pharmacy garden” was somewhat reduced, and some plots of land were donated or sold. But a large plot of land in the western part of the island still remains the “Pharmacy vegetable garden” - only now it is called the Botanical Garden.

Prince Lopukhin, after whom the garden was named, purchased a plot of land in the north of Aptekarsky Island in the early 19th century. Later this plot of land changed several owners. Philanthropist and merchant Gromov built a two-story wooden dwelling house in the garden on the bank of the pond in the middle of the XIX century, this house has survived to this day. It turned out to be a funny topographical mishap, two toponyms are used for this place: “Lopukhinsky garden” and “Gromov's dacha”. In the garden there are many beautiful flowerbeds, comfortable benches - this place remains a great place for walks and recreation to this day.

On the neighboring streets you can find monuments and buildings that remind us of the history of the island, of the time when the whole island was the Pharmacy Gardens. My attention was attracted by a house decorated with tiles with the names of famous naturalists and doctors: Darwin, Pirogov, Koch, Sechenov, Botkin... This is the building of the Scientific Library of the Institute of Experimental Medicine. The Art Nouveau building was built for the library in the early 20th century.

I looked at the map, and saw that there was an informal attraction nearby that I had wanted to see for a long time. This attraction is located on the neighboring Stone Island. I crossed the bridge and continued my walk on Stone Island. To begin with, I went to the gate leading to the western cape of Stone Island. The Stone Island Palace is located there. There is no free passage to the territory of the palace, but you can look at the building through the fence.

The residential quarter is located nearby. I walk towards the residential buildings along a narrow gap between two high walls. This passageway has no official name, but it has a folk name. A sign with the name “Mooncats Street” is fixed on the wall of a house. Nearby is pixel art illustrating the name. At the back of the block by a yellow stone fence are houses not for moon cats, but for very ordinary cats.

Between the residential quarter and the busy prospekt there is a small garden. At the back of the garden stands the parish Orthodox Church of the Nativity of St. John the Baptist, next to it, on the bank of the river is a small chapel. The church was built in neo-Gothic style at the end of the XVIII century. The chapel appeared much later, but stylistically it is in a similar style. At this point I finish my walk: the cloudy weather ends and the rainy weather begins.