SAINT PETERSBURG

Swastika

Ugolny Pereulok, 7
View the large image of this swastika and you'll see that it was made of colored bricks. Also you can view the building itself. It was designed in the Russian folk tradition that is why it contents so many fylfots.

Zagorodny Prospect, 47
A long row of swastikas on the department of the Army Medical College. The building is made in pseudo-Greek style.

Kamennoostrovsky Prospect, 67
It is hard to notice this swastika on the decoration of the garret but we've managed. The building was designed in the Russian folk tradition too, what can be seen in the pictures of the birds very well.

Yusupovsky Garden (Sadovaya Ulitsa)
A flower in the shape of a five-pointed swastika on the wrought-iron fence. It is clear that the craftsmen made this form advisedly. Columns of the fence are decorated with a caduceus.

2 Liniya V.O., 47 (upper left)
Mohovaya Ulitsa, 28 (upper right)
Ulitsa Millionnaya, 24 (lower left)
Kamennoostrovsky Prospect, 11 (lower right)
The upper left row of swastikas runs along all the two-storied building. The upper right one is situated above the entrance only, while the lower right row is tinier even, it adorns the outrigger of a balcony.

Letny Garden (Naberezhnaya Kutuzova)
The fence of the garden is less elegant than that of Yusupovsky Garden, so is a swastika (the left image). Though the swastika on the gates is beautiful.

Bolshaya Morskaya Ulitsa, 12
This swastika also has "floral origin" but this time it is six-pointed. It may be Baroque or Rococo style, we are not experts. But who cares?

Universitetskaya Naberezhnaya, 17
Again swastika of "floral origin" and again it is six-pointed. Other symbols from the bas-relief row under the roof (hammer, compasses, angle bar and the sun) seem Masonic, but in reality they are not related to Freemasonry, because this building is the old house of the Academy of Arts.

Universitetskaya Naberezhnaya, 17 (inside)
It's quite another matter one of the Academy’s auditoriums. On the walls under a ceiling of the Anatomy room we can find decorating pattern in the form of swastikas.

Ulitsa Nekrasova, 10 (inside)
This is another example of so called "inner swastika". The usual row of swastikas is situated on the ceiling of hall. Well, if it is interesting to you what is the building with such ceiling, we can say this is the Bolshoi (Great) Puppet-show Theatre of Sankt-Petersburg. The main audience of it as you understand are children.

Theatralnaya Ploschad, 1 (inside)
Well, next symbol is so called "floral swastika" so it is breaking out from the selection of austere decorating patterns in the form of swastikas, but foremost this is "inner swastika" again, secondly several swastikas like that are situated on the ceiling too. In the third place we have to do with theatre again - this time famous Mariinsky Theatre. View also some detail of the ceiling.

Gorohovaya Ulitsa, 11 (upper left)
Sadovaya Ulitsa, 36 (upper right)
1 Liniya V.O., 6 (middle left)
Bolshaya Morskaya Ulitsa, 25 (middle right)
Moskovsky Prospect, 31 (lower left)
Ulitsa Zhukovskogo, 59 (lower right)
Another six decorating patterns in the form of swastikas taken in different places of the city. Each of them adorns the front of the long house.

7 Liniya V.O., 4
Well, one another row of swastikas, but this one is decorated with some brick-like elements.

Ulitsa Radischeva, 27
Three swastikas on the column between high windows. There is something interesting in the facade of this building...

Naberezhnaya Obvodnogo Kanala, 131
A figured swastika on the side elevation. It can be seen from the Novomoskovsky bridge perfectly.

Naberezhnaya Reki Moyki, 58
This swastika is made of granite, so we guess it was a hard task to carve it. It is situated on the vault of the arch of the building, and there are three such arches.

Naberezhnaya Reki Moyki, 12
And this swastika is made of wood. But we don't think that it was too easy to make this flower, it was some kind of delicate work. Two such swastika-shaped flowers are carved on the gates.

Naberezhnaya Kanala Griboedova, 35 (left)
Kazanskaya Ulitsa, 40 (right)
And again two long rows meet. Unlike the most of the represented on the page rows the right one is situated on the front of a very exquisite decorating.

Nevsky Prospect, 78
This row contains both right- and left-side swastikas. Other interesting thing in this case is that the building with this row of swastikas is situated in the centre of St. Petersburg - at the intersection of two main streets: Nevsky Prospect and Liteyny Prospect (Liteyny Prospect, 64).

Nevsky Prospect, 119 (left)
Nevsky Prospect, 184 (right)
Again Nevsky Prospect, the main street of St. Petersburg. Two building are situated in the Nevsky's part called "Staronevsky" (Old-Nevsky), first one (left) has the usual row of swastikas generated with two lines, and on the other building (right) you can see so called "floral swastika".

Ulitsa Egorova, 4
Here you can see two foils which are typical for the Gothic style, though the building doesn't look of that kind. By the way both images were included by Guido von List in his "Runic Table": the left symbol is "Flamboyant quadrofoil", the right one is "Trifoil".

Ulitsa Zhukovskogo, 28
Another floral swastika, this time the symbol itself can be seen perfectly, but it isn't so observable from the other side of the street.

Naberezhnaya Reki Fontanki, 169
Again you can view a swastika-shaped flower of iron, it is situated on the hand-rail of the balcony on the first (second in Russian) floor.

Naberezhnaya Reki Moyki, 20
Now we have even two swastika-shaped flowers on the building of the Chapel: one of iron (the left image), another of stone (the right one). The row of the iron swastikas stretches through the gates of the Chapel. And the row of stone swastikas girdles all the building under the roof. Some of stone swastikas are single in bas-relief, they are situated on the columns before the main entrance of the Chapel.

Sankt-Peterburgsky Prospect, 32
And another form of the floral swastika we have found on the basement of the Saint Apostles Peter and Paul's Cathedral in Petrodvorez. It seems that the double swastika symbolizes the Christian eight-pointed star.

Sankt-Peterburgsky Prospect, 15
Almost across the street from the church mentioned above there is a building in the pseudo gothic style. Just look at this five-pointed symbol on the gates: it combines both swastika and pentagram. The second one is a quadrafoil, a typical element of the style.

Privokzalnaya Ploschad, 1
Well, we are still in Petrodvorez, a suburb town of St. Petersburg. This swastika is in similar vein as above except it is four-pointed one. This symbol is an element of the balcony railing that is situated on the wing of a building of the Petrodvorez's railroad station. The building has two side wings and as you can see it is in pseudo gothic style again. Some illusion of Gothic cathedral. Right you can see a quadrafoil too.

Ploschad Ostrovskogo, 5
Here we can see a building made in the Russian folk tradition of embroidery and wood engraving (to illustrate it better we have added the image of the rooster, the frequent character of Russian fairy tales). Also a six-pointed star can be viewed here.

8 Liniya V.O., 53
Another example of the upper form of the symbol though it can seem less obvious. Of course you can say this is just a usual rectangular rhombus but we think it exactly means swastika.

Bolshoy Prospect V.O., 100
Two more rhombus patterns, they were pictured on the Church of the Sparing Blessed Virgin (it's situated in the area of something which looks like a military unit and it wasn't returned to the Orthodox Church yet - you see, it has no crosses on the domes). Then in the top piece of both pictures you can view the row of floral compositions, where three-pointed swastikas are discernible. This is so called Byzantine style.

Naberezhnaya Reki Fontanki, 10 (Gangutskaya Ulitsa, 1)
More ingenious rows of left- and right-side swastikas. The right row (it is situated under the large window) is a true puzzle for a viewer, it is hard to make out swastikas at first sight.

Izmaylovsky Prospect, 1 (upper left)
Ulitsa Vosstaniya, 20 (upper right)
Bolshoy Prospect V.O., 8 (lower left)
Svechnoy Pereulok 2 / 12 (lower right)
Here we have the same story as above, and the symbols in the left pictures are bent in a more queer way. By the way we guess that the flowers and the swastikas of these compositions have equal meaning.

Naberezhnaya Reki Moyki, 99
This symbol is similar to the one above (Bolshoy Prospect V.O., 8). The row of swastikas of such kind is situated over the balcony.

Bolshaya Konushennaya Ulitsa, 19
These two remarkable symbols are disposed one above the other on the front of the building. Pay attention to the nice squirrels in the left image.

8 Liniya V.O., 41
Another swastika of iron on the balcony, this time five-pointed. It has been preserved much better than the previous example from the balcony...

Potyomkinskaya Ulitsa, 3 (left)
Bolshoy Prospect V.O., 52 (right)
The same symbols as the upper one as you can note. Each one runs along the whole perimeter of the building, and the right symbol alternates with Maltese cross.

Admiralteiskaya Naberezhnaya, 17
This swastika-shaped flower is situated on the wall of the building too, but now it is again of iron, also it is the element of the metal flower composition.

1 Liniya V.O., 12
Once more swastika of iron on the balcony, this time four-pointed again. And it has been preserved much better than two previous examples from the balcony. Honestly this is the best pattern of swastika on the balcony, isn't it?

Naberezhnaya Reki Moyki, 95
...and one more swastika of iron from the balcony, though it's three-pointed and has quite other location.

Naberezhnaya Reki Fontanki, 18
This is swastika of iron on the balcony again, but as you can see it is a "true" swastika to that we are used. There are three balconies with swastikas on the building.

Bolshaya Konushennaya Ulitsa, 10
Not so frequent case when we can find swastika both on the facade of the building and on its balcony. Furthermore the row of swastikas on the balcony isn't usual (by the way swastikas on the facade are both right- and left-sided that takes place not so often too), generated with two lines, but uncommon, generated with three lines as you can see.

The 3^rd Krasnoarmeyskaya Ulitsa, 2 (upper left)
The 13^th Krasnoarmeyskaya Ulitsa, 26 (upper right)
Dvortsovaya Naberezhnaya, 22 (middle left)
Dvortsovaya Naberezhnaya, 32 (middle right)
Stolyarny Pereulok, 12 (lower left)
Prachechny Pereulok, 10 (lower right)
Swastika attacks in rows. Just a few notes. The building Number 32 on Dvortsovaya Naberezhnaya is nothing but the Hermitage Museum, which was the Winter Palace of Peter the Great in the past. Moreover, you can find swastikas just in the main room of the palace - in the Throne Room, both on the parquetry and on the ceiling. Also two other rooms (1st & 2nd) have swastika on their parquetries. So the greatest tzar of Russia used swastika, want you it or not.
Then the building on Stolyarny Pereulok is situated close to the house where F. M. Dostoevsky lived while writing his "Crime and Punishment" novel and to the building, which was described in this novel as the Raskolnikov's address. It is just an interesting detail, nothing more... View also this building after restoration

Ploschad Belinskogo, 2 (upper left)
Ulitsa Millionnaya, 21 (upper right)
Naberezhnaya Reki Moyki, 54 (lower left)
Pushkinskaya Ulitsa, 17 (lower right)
Four rows of swastikas, each one is made with two separated intersecting lines, so it's a kind of a network...

Sadovaya Ulitsa, 2
This row of swastikas is made with two separated intersecting lines too, we can see it on the flank little tower of the Engineering Castle (also Michael's Castle) on the Fontanka river that was the residence of Emperor Paul I. The row makes the common composition with the Maltese cross that you can find in other symbols.

The 9^th Sovetskaya Ulitsa, 4
Two remarkable patterns, both single and double swastikas. By the way their position adds to the building a rather totalitarian look.

Naberezhnaya Kanala Griboedova, 2
After peering at the façade of the Cathedral of the Resurrection of Christ (it is also called "The Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood") you can find here swastika. Also view the David's star and other symbols from this building.

Dvinskaya Ulitsa, 2
Again church, this time the Epiphany Church on Gutuevsky Island. The wooden doors of the grand entrance are bedecked with two kinds of ornament, both are very similar to swastika. While the doors on the side face of the church contain only first (left) swastika.

Millionnaya Ulitsa, 5 / 1
The building that situated at the address above is the Marmoreal Palace, it's the branch of the State Russian Museum. There are no interesting symbols on the walls of this building, but in the inside we found a corridor, the ceiling of which is overfilled with rows of swastikas. The ceiling is divided into sectors which's wings (astride the row of chandeliers) are large swastikas as you can see (and understand). The centre of the ceiling is a strange figure formed by interweaving of straight and diagonal lines. So the corner pieces of this figure are overfilled with swastikas too.

Voznesensky Prospect, 36 (left)
Voznesensky Prospect, 47 (right)
Again decorating patterns in the form of swastikas. Both sorts of the row of swastikas are situated over every front window on one of floors of a building (the second floor in the first case and the first one in the second). Both cases are interesting from that point of view that before restoration that has passed rather recently, there were no swastikas on these buildings.

Ulitsa Pravdy 7 (left)
Ulitsa Pravdy 17 (right)
Again swastika attacks in rows. Some typical examples of the long pattern between floors of a building. Nothing interesting unless that both buildings are situated in the same street.

Naberezhnaya Reki Moyki, 118
So... This is like mantra... Again swastika, again over front windows... Again typical building.

Primorsky Prospect, 91
Did somebody say "mantra"? Well, here is the Buddhistic temple in St. Petersburg (Datsan Gunzechoinei) - by the way, the northermost in the world Buddhistic temple. In the center of the symbol of the Buddhistic faith - Dharmachakra ("Wheel of Dharma" or "Wheel of Life"), which is situated above the temple's grand entrance, we can see the triradiate swastika. Even though it is concealed with three fishes, it is true swastika.