Wednesday Walk: abandoned wooden houses and a fence made of railway wagons

The day was overcast. The day before was sunny, and the day before that was sunny, and the forecasts were favourable - in general, we were hoping for good weather. But it wasn't. On the other hand, it could have rained, but it was just cloudy. We didn't want to plan it all over again, choosing a convenient day in a complicated schedule. So we didn't cancel the planned walk and set off on this journey through the strange places of the city.

This walk required such complex planning, because the route was not through the city centre streets, or even the outskirts of the city, but through wastelands, cul-de-sacs and the like, including places where the mapping vehicles do not pass through. "The grey area" remains grey on city maps. We can only wonder if there is a path through the industrial wasteland, or if we will have to make a big detour to get to the right place.

So why did we decide to visit these unfriendly places? A very simple reason, really. New construction is unfolding now in the city. It is planned to build several objects of city infrastructure, these are such important transport objects as a new bridge across the Neva River, high-speed motorway, high-speed railway. Plots of city land are being allocated for this construction, transformations affecting the territory occupied by various old industrial enterprises and a non-operational railway line. We wanted to take the last opportunity to have a look at these areas before the construction work starts.

We started our walk near the monument to an old steam locomotive. Steam locomotive Эр-785-49, a freight car and diesel locomotive 2ТЭ 116-03 are installed near the railway technical school. It looks very unusual: you walk along the street, past ordinary houses, shops, bus stops and suddenly you see a steam locomotive parked near one of the buildings. We chose this place as the starting point of our route, so that we could include visits to some of the city's lesser-known sights in our walk.

From the steam locomotive, we turned into a city block built up with small cottages in the mid-twentieth century. These houses are not considered landmarks, but they look nice and cosy. The drawing of a cat on the dusty back of the van is accompanied by the caption "The best cat on the planet!". It looks like it was drawn from life. The next drawing is graffiti on the balcony, such graffiti is extremely rare in our city. The drawing is located quite high, and the figure of the juggler is difficult to see in detail.

The monument to Olga Berggolts is set in the centre of a small garden. The place for this monument was chosen opposite the house where Olga Berggolts lived as a child. Olga Berggolts read her poems on the radio during the siege of Leningrad during the Second World War. The figure of the poet stands against the wall of an old house with a round loudspeaker. Such radio receivers were installed in the houses of the city residents at that time.

The next point of our route is an amazing toponymic artefact. A small street is called "Staroputilovsky rampart". The name "rampart" as the name of the street is found in Old Russian cities, it is the name of the streets laid along the old fortress walls. But for St. Petersburg this name is more of a curiosity, it appeared because there was a railway embankment nearby. This street consists of several houses, but only one of them has a number plate with the name of the street. All the other houses are corner houses and are numbered by neighbouring streets.

We are approaching the final part of our route. A dusty driveway stretches between two blind fences and leads us to an abandoned two-story wooden house. The walls are made of parquet boards, a lopsided antenna, metal parts on the facade ... it all looks strange. A few more small wooden buildings are located a little further away. The fence separating the territory of the base is made of old wagons. The gate is ajar, but a guard is on duty nearby. This is where we end our walk.

This is my entry for the #WednesdayWalk challenge by @tattoodjay.