Sankt Peterburg Is A Late-Rising City, And If You...

Sankt Peterburg, Russia

Sankt Peterburg is a late-rising city, and if you run much before (say) 7:30 am, you'll barely see anyone on the streets. There are often older men in the parks doing some sort of calesthenics; I think they're veterans who think they're staying in shape. Otherwise nobody exercises, and the few people you'll see will consider you nuts and ignore you. It's relatively safe at that hour, but bring a ziploc baggie with a photocopy of your passport, and any of the following: enough money for a pay toilet (used to be 200r, but that's likely changed), enough money for a metro token (if you're at the Sovetskaya, no help) or enough money for a bus ticket, or a metro token or a bus ticket. Therefore, if you get in a jam, you can get out. It may also be a good idea to carry a card with your hotel address lettered in Russian, if you can do that (the desk clerk, if helpful, might do that for you... address in Russian is "address," roll the "r" a tiny bit and stress the "e"). As for where... I lived off Moskovsky Prospekt, which is pretty close to the center of the city, and did most of my running on the Fontanka, one of the major canals in the area (I think this is the canal someone reported as the "garden canal", since it's next to the Sovetskaya hotel on my map). The canals are good places to run on in that section of the city, since they go on for miles, and you can fake hills (no hills in Sankt Peterburg) by running up and down the stairs to landings in the canals. I think the Fontanka is about four miles long (so up one bank and down the other is an eight-mile run) but I created a ten-miler by running Fontanka to the Neva river, follow the Neva until you take a left at the Bronze Horseman (can't miss it) then through St. Isaac's square, take the third and smallest Perspective road (can't remember the name) all the way to Canal Griboyedova and follow that to Fontanka. Find the parks. A lap around the "Summer Gardens" (corner of Neva and Fontanka) is pretty close to a mile. There are canals on Vassilievsky Island and Petrograd Side, as well. If you're in Petrograd Side, head north to Kammeni Ostrov (Stone Island, easy to get to: get on Kammeni Prospekt and head north). If you can run on the island, it's lots of parks. Most of the city's athletic facilities are on Petrograd side.