Odessa St., 1, Saint Petersburg, Russia, 191124
If you are walking near Smolny, turn onto the small and quiet Odesskaya Street. Here you will find an unusual open-air museum. It doesn’t look like a museum at all—no museum building, no guide. Only lanterns (just six exhibits), which are never lit, and a bronze figure of a lamplighter. The first street lamps in Russia appeared right here in Saint Petersburg.
This happened by decree of Peter I on December 4 (new style), 1706, on the day celebrating the victory over the Swedes. Several street lamps were hung on the facades of four houses near the Peter and Paul Fortress. The first lamps were oil lamps.
The people liked the lamps, their number increased, and the position of lamplighter appeared—someone who lit the lamps in the evening and extinguished them in the morning. The first lamplighters in Petersburg were soldiers stationed in the capital and policemen. They had uniforms and badges. Each lamplighter serviced 9-10 lamps.
Oil lamps had a drawback. Gogol writes about it in “Nevsky Prospect”: “Further, for God’s sake, further from the lamp! And quickly, as quickly as possible, pass by. It’s still lucky if you get away with just having your dandy coat doused with stinking oil.”
From 1821, the first gas lamps appeared in Petersburg, although oil and spirit-turpentine lamps were still used simultaneously. From 1863, kerosene lamps also appeared.
So, the first lamps appeared near the Peter and Paul Fortress, but the museum is located on Odesskaya Street. What makes this small street so remarkable?
On September 11 (23), 1873, a crowd gathered on quiet Odesskaya Street. In two street lamps, kerosene lamps were replaced by incandescent carbon lamps, and people, carrying newspapers, moved from one lamp to another, comparing the brightness.
The fact is that here was the city’s first office for the production of street lighting devices. Electrical engineer Alexander Nikolaevich Lodygin tested the first street electric lamps near the former house of Guard Lieutenant K. Teleshov, where the “Lodygin & Co.” society rented premises.
However, after the first tests, Lodygin’s lamps did not find proper application. Later, Yablochkov’s “candles” were widely used, but the first steps in street electrification were made by Lodygin.
This street in the center of Petersburg seemed to be waiting for the bronze lamplighter: two years before his housewarming, six old-fashioned lamps from different eras were placed on Odesskaya—oil, gas, kerosene, spirit, and electric—visually showing the stages of street lighting development in Saint Petersburg. Made according to archival drawings, they replicate every detail of various lamps from the progress-rich 19th and 20th centuries. It turned out to be an open-air lamp museum with its own guide. However, the exhibits have never been lit since the opening. But despite this, people come here—for impressions, wealth, and prosperity. According to legend, if you rub the bronze lamplighter’s boot, your home will be full of abundance. The main thing is to clearly formulate your wish, because the lamplighter takes everything literally.
When walking around Saint Petersburg, just start paying attention to the masterpieces of street lighting around you. Among them, there are truly works of art! And they fit perfectly into the historical appearance of the city.
On Bolshaya Konyushennaya Street, you can see horses on the lamps.
The lamps on Panteleimonovsky Bridge are notable because their bases are spears with a shield in the middle. And on the shield is the head of Medusa Gorgon.
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