Summer Garden

The Summer Garden was laid out from 1704, the first garden in the new city, in the formal Dutch and French manner Peter I wanted - straight allées, clipped hedges, fountains, and marble sculpture bought in Italy, of which around ninety pieces are the core of the collection. The 1777 flood destroyed the fountain system and the garden was reworked in a looser English manner through the nineteenth century; a restoration completed in 2012 took it back towards the eighteenth-century layout, replanting hedges, rebuilding fountains and returning the geometry, which was controversial with people attached to the shaded romantic park it had become. The original marbles are now in the Russian Museum for conservation and what stands outside are copies. The wrought-iron railing on the Neva side, designed in the 1770s, is one of the emblems of the city. Peter's small Summer Palace of 1712 stands in the corner.

What you actually see

• The restored geometry - the 2012 return to an eighteenth-century formal layout.
• The sculpture - copies outdoors, with the original Italian marbles now indoors.
• The Neva railing - the 1770s wrought-iron screen, an emblem of the city.
• The Summer Palace - Peter I's small 1712 house in the corner of the garden.

When to go

May to September - the garden closes for a spring drying period and the statues are boxed in winter. One to two hours.

Honest expectations

Closed for several weeks in April for drying, which catches people out. Statues are covered in boxes from October to May. The outdoor sculpture is copies. The 2012 restoration divides local opinion.

Nearby

The Mikhailovsky Castle is south; the Field of Mars is west.