…And then in the romantic
Summer Garden In a blue purity of Petersburg
May I shall quietly walk along desolate lanes…
Georgy Ivanov
The oldest Garden of Petersburg was laid out in 1704. This is a regular Garden, i.e. the paths are crossed at right angles like streets and avenues on Manhattan. A naive rational idea was that the park had to be both a place for walking and a source of enlightenment. The sculptures for the most part made in the eighteenth century in Italy had to introduce the world of ancient heroes to an uncivilised Russian aristocrat, to perform a language of myths and allegories being a foundation of the European culture of those times.
However there is a funny exception – a monument to old man Krylov constructed in a bidermeier style in1855 by Peter Klodt the main horse specialist of Nikolay I times. The heroes of Krylov's fables are on the pedestal. When in 1980-s unknown vandals broke some marble statues in the Garden the citizens considered it as a large-scale tragedy. So it is a sacred place like a cemetery. In the autumn all 89 sculptures are closed in special containers. In May they are uncovered again. Covering and uncovering statues with containers is an important event of the Petersburg calendar associated with opening and closing fountains in Petergoff or with the beginning and ending of the navigation period hence opening/closing bridges on the Neva-river. 
In the Garden there has been saved a marvellous Summer Palace of Peter I, an only original building in Petersburg directly associated with the Emperor, and two pavilions – Tea and Coffee houses (architects Charlemagne and Rossi respectively). Going all the way through the Garden you will reach the Karpiev pond with swans, white and black which city-dwellers are proud of. Here is a vase presented to Nikolay I by the Swedish king and a nice decorative flower-bed gifted to the city by the Romanovs successors. On the cast-iron wall from the Moika side (called Charlemagne grid unlike Felten grid) there is a horrible jellyfish Gorgon. The wall is the main highlight of the Summer Garden. Thirty-six monumental granite columns decorated with rhythmically alternated vases unite the sections with a light openwork grid as if soaring in the air. The grid of the Summer Garden is an outstanding creation of the Russian architectural style. 
To dispel a lyrical sad philosophical mood captured anyone walking in the Summer Garden you might cross the Fontanka-river and go to restaurant-club 'Jimmy Hendrix Blues Club' to get new impressions. A lot of things tell us about its peculiarity. Firstly 'Jimmy Hendrix' is the only club in Northern Venice where you can listen to real blues – elite music of all times! This is a reason why the art-club is named by one of the famous legends of rock music, the American guitarist and singer Jimmy Hendrix.
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