New Holland Island
Circular former naval prison and eighteenth-century timber island reborn as a courtyard of cafes and shops.
Location
About this audio guide
This guide traces New Holland Island in Saint Petersburg back to Peter the Great, who carved it from the swamp in 1719 to hide a naval timber yard worked by so many Dutch shipwrights that the nickname outlasted every other name tried for it. A century later the navy needed somewhere to hold its own men, and architect Alexander Shtaubert designed the round building behind you as a prison in about 1830, unusually progressive for its era in how it treated the men inside. Locals gave the curved building its own nickname almost two hundred years ago, one that slid straight into everyday Russian speech.
This audio guide was created using AI.
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