Autumn walk along the Fountain Waterway

Greetings friends! A few days ago I told you about Lake Meadow Park, which is located around the lakes and canals that carry water to the fountains of Peterhof. This time I decided to continue my walk, and walk along the canals in the part of the water system that is located among residential neighbourhoods.

Peterhof is not only a museum with palaces and parks, it is also a small town that grew up on the site of an old rural settlement. However, this preface is almost meaningless: Peterhof is a very green city, and almost the whole route of my walk lay along park alleys and boulevards, a small piece of urban development will appear in my photos only at the very end of this walk.

I started this story in the same place I stopped last time. Between the park and the city there is a small piece of vacant land, which is chaotically overgrown with bushes (if you read the first part of the story about Lake Meadow Park, this is the same area where you can get lost if you take a narrow path too early, before reaching the main entrance to the park). There are three parallel canals running from the lakes towards the fountains, with walkways along the banks of the canals.

These canals have their own name, they are called Samsonievsky waterway. Cast-iron pipes are laid along the bottom of the canals. The pipeline carries water to the cascade fountains, and the rest of the water from the canals is collected in a rectangular pond to then flow to the numerous fountains on the lower terrace of the park. I don't know why a dual water supply system was chosen - it seems like it could have been limited to regular canals. But I am neither a hydraulic engineer nor an engineer, so perhaps the experts had their reasons for choosing this design.

It would be right to put a picture of the fountains here, and I would certainly take such a picture if it were not for one thing. In autumn, the water supply to the fountains is turned off to prevent damage to the pipes during frosts. Daytime temperatures in October are usually quite comfortable, but nighttime frosts are frequent. So I took an old painted engraving as an illustration.

View of the Grand Cascade, Samson Fountain and the Grand Palace in Peterhof. 1801 - 1810. Engraving, watercolour. Author of the drawing M. Shotoshnikov, engraver I. Chesky, colouring by G. Novikov.

The first section of the waterway is the most picturesque. Old trees intertwine their branches high above our heads. Yellow autumn leaves lie on the smooth surface of the canal water like sun bunnies. This is true natural beauty, human involvement here is minimal.

Soon I cross the invisible city boundary line (as well as a clearly visible tarmac motorway) and go deeper into one of the city parks. The landscape changes quite a bit; this park looks more like a meadow than a forest. But I continue to walk down the alley along the fountain, and the old trees continue to rustle above my head.

Nevertheless, the change is noticeable. There are beautiful bridges spanning the canals, and designers have worked hard on their appearance. The further I walk, the more people I meet in the park alleys. The locals enjoy stopping by the park whenever they get the chance.

I cross from end to end of Colonial Park, and next I should have gone into the Upper Garden, but it's currently under renovation and not accessible to the public. Well, we can end the walk. But I want to rest for a while and turn off to a small square near the canals. I didn't expect to see any sights in this square, a comfortable bench was just what I had in mind. It was all the more pleasant to see the garden sculptures that have recently appeared in this place. At least, I had not seen them before, and I had not come across any information about their installation.

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Smartphone	Google Pixel 3a
Location	Peterhof, Saint Petersburg, Russia