Small at first history reference.

The idea to decorate St. Petersburg with equestrian statues arose in 1832, when the young self-taught sculptor Pyotr Karlovich Klodt, by that time a volunteer at the Academy of Arts, received an order from the Russian Tsar to cast two groups of figures to decorate the piers. Admiralteisky Boulevard, at the entrance to the Palace Square. However, a few years later, at the request of Klodt, it was decided to install them on the reconstructed Anichkov Bridge. The bridge was opened in November 1841, the first two groups of bronze figures saw the light, which amazed everyone (on the other, eastern side of the bridge, their exact plaster copies were installed). "People are gathering in crowds at the new Anichkov Bridge," the newspapers wrote.

In 1842-1843, Klodt cast bronze copies of the figures to replace the remaining two plaster groups, but the admiring Prussian king Friedrich Wilhelm saw them, and Nicholas I ordered to give him a gift, the statues were taken to Berlin, they were installed at the main gate of the royal palace.

In 1843-1844, Klodt again casts bronze copies of the Tamers, but already another guest of Nicholas I, King Ferdinand II of Sicily, seeing Klodt's horses, wished to see them in Naples. In the spring of 1846 they were sent to where they stand today at the entrance to the palace garden.

Finally, in 1850-1851, Klodt installs the last bronze horses, but not copies of the first two, as before, but two new groups. His 18 summer labor has been completed.

Equestrian groups are united by the plot idea - four moments of taming an unbroken horse are taken, their fear, anger, fury, and finally, obedience are conveyed. The 28-year-old sculptor sculpted the first models of horses from two purebred Arabian stallions from the stable of Nicholas I, one of which was called Amalatbek. The structure of the horse has been recreated with absolute precision, all of its muscles and skin folds are visible. According to legend, the emperor, who visited the workshop and saw the horses still in clay, said admiringly: "Baron, your horses are better than my stallions." In my photographs, I retouched all the wires and interfering fragments of buildings in order to try to convey these feelings that the contemporaries of the great sculptor experienced from viewing.

1-3. First group. The driver leans on one knee, squeezing the bridle with both hands, stopping the horse's run.

4-5. Second group. Vodnichy tries to siege the horse, the horse is furious.
Unfortunately, I took all the pictures at the same time of day and didn't manage to take a profile photo of this group against the sun.

6-10. Third group. The animal is submissive to man, horseshoes are visible on the hooves, instead of a saddle, it looks like the skin of the symbol of "United Russia")

11-13. Fourth group. The horse overcomes the waterman.

For all the time, the statues were removed twice, during the Great Patriotic War the horses were buried in the ground in the courtyard of the Anichkov Palace, and during the recent restoration before the tercentenary of St. Petersburg.

Klodt's horses are torn
To walk along the Nevsky
Yes, they are afraid that they will stumble:
Mercedes on the way...))))

BUT Nichkov Bridge is one of the most famous and beautiful bridges in the world.
It differs from other bridges thanks to sculptures. Although St. Petersburg is famous for its drawbridges, this bridge is not a drawbridge now, but it is one of the most famous and most visited by tourists bridges in St. Petersburg.

There are several versions why the bridge got this unusual name. official and most main version- the bridge owes its name to Lieutenant Colonel-engineer Mikhail Anichkov (emphasis on I), whose battalion in the time of Peter the Great was stationed behind the Fontanka in the so-called Anichkova Sloboda.

In 1715, Emperor Peter I issued a decree: "After the Bolshaya Neva on the Fountain River, in the future, create a bridge." By May 1716, the work was completed and a wooden beam multi-span bridge on pile supports was built across the Fontanka, blocking both the channel itself and the swampy floodplain.
The bridge was enough great length, since the Fontanka itself was then an impressive water barrier and had a width of about 200 meters.

in 1721 the crossing was expanded, the bridge became eighteen-span. middle part they made it lifting, because by that time the Fontanka had already been cleaned and deepened, and ships began to sail along it.

The bridge underwent a major overhaul in 1726 and 1742, and in 1749 the architect Semyon Volkov built a new wooden bridge, which did not differ much from the typical bridges of that time. According to one version, the crossing was made without a drawbridge and was strengthened in order to deliver elephants, a gift from the Shah of Iran, to the king.

Before late XVIII century Fontanka was the border of the city, so the bridge served as a kind of checkpoint. There was a checkpoint near the bridge.

Constant a stone bridge thrown across the Fontanka along the line of Nevsky Prospekt in 1785. He looked like this...

Almost an exact copy Lomonosov Bridge (still the same Staro-Kalinkin Bridge), which has been preserved to this day and which will be the next post. The middle span was made in wood and opened to let small ships and barges through. Between the four granite tower superstructures, which rested on river supports, heavy chains were stretched, which served to lift the canvases of the adjustable part.

In 1841 old bridge dismantled and erected a new one in seven months. In January 1842, the Grand opening new crossing. Three spans, covered with gentle vaults, were laid out of brick, the bridge supports and spans were lined with granite, cast-iron railings appeared with alternating paired images of hippocampus (fantastic seahorses) and strange mermaids according to a drawing by the Berlin architect Karl Schinkel.

Please note - this is a rare, previously unknown species of mermaids. They have hind legs and a tail. With such mermaids, sailors do not have classic questions ... but how ...

Granite pedestals for statues also appeared, on which the sculptures “Horse Tamers” were erected, commissioned by the sculptor P.K. Klodt to decorate the Admiralteyskaya embankment. The original project also included the installation of bronze vases in the middle of the bridge (above each of the pillars). This point of the project was abandoned, leaving the pedestals to the descendants as a keepsake.

The first two sculptures, “A Horse with a Walking Young Man” and “A Young Man Taking a Horse by the Bridle”, cast in bronze, appeared on the west side in 1841. The sculptures on east coast they repeated the western ones, but were temporary, made of plaster, painted in bronze. Only cast to replace them and barely cooled bronze horses directly from the foundry yard, Nicholas I gave the king of Prussia Friedrich Wilhelm IV. They are still in Berlin.

In 1844, the oriental plaster sculptures were finally replaced with bronze ones, but they did not stand for long, two years later Nicholas I presented them to the King of the Two Sicilies for the hospitality shown to the Russian Empress during a trip to Italy and in 1846 ended up in Naples. I was there, link to the post below.

"Horse Tamers" in front of the Royal Palace in Naples. I have a separate post about them.

Subsequently, copies of Klodt's horses ended up in Peterhof, Strelna, and the Moscow estate of the Golitsyns - Kuzminki.

The emperor did not like Klodt. But his talent was recognized. There is a legend that Nicholas I said: "Well, Klodt, you make horses better than a stallion."

And the emperor did not like Klodt, that's why. Klodt had very good horses and a badass coachman without a tower. He, a rogue, had a habit of overtaking all the carriages on the street.

Once, Klodt in his carriage overtook the crew of the emperor himself. And to overtake the king himself is a serious matter. It was possible to thunder in exile. It was not even allowed to drive close to the king ...

The emperor recognized Klodt and jokingly shook his finger at him. Klodt scolded the coachman well and ordered not even to drive past the palace.

But he did not take into account the vanity of the royal coachman, and he conveyed to the coachman Klodt, they say, hold on, I was not ready, next time we'll see who will take ... in a word, a challenge was thrown to the competition.

And after all, the case, as luck would have it, soon presented itself. Ehzal Klodt by Senate Square, and at the Morskaya street the crowd, "Hurrah" is heard. Hence, the king.

Klodt shouts at the coachman and pokes him in the back with a stick to stop him - nothing helps! And so, the king's coachman, seeing his rival, pressed the horses, and Klodt's coachman, not listening to the owner, struck with the reins ... and a race began, to the horror of the guards and police accompanying the king, who did not know what to think.

The most surprising thing is that this time Klodt's horses won. And the emperor, it seems, showed him a fist through the window.

The story would have ended badly for Klodt, but the same horses, only copper ones, rescued him from trouble. At that time he graduated and had already cast horses for the Anichkov Bridge.

The king came, looked and was completely delighted.
- It's them? the tsar asked, subtly alluding to the living Klodt horses that had overtaken him. Indeed, Klodt sculpted from them.
- For these, - said the king, pointing to the copper ones, - I forgive ...))))

But still, the emperor constantly gave abroad these horses he loved. And each time they were removed from the bridge and replaced with plaster copies.

Finally, in 1851 the bridge was finally completed. Klodt did not repeat the previous sculptures, but created two new compositions, as a result, the statues began to depict four different stages conquering a horse.

The statues left the bridge twice more: in 1941, during the blockade, they were removed and buried in the garden of the Anichkov Palace, and in 2000 they were taken away for restoration and returned to their original place by the 300th anniversary of the city.

The horse is subdued...

The statues of horses that “look” towards the Admiralty have horseshoes on their hooves, and the statues of horses that look towards the Uprising Square do not have horseshoes. Earlier in Kuznechny Lane there were (oddly enough) blacksmiths))) and almost all the horses in the city were shod there. Therefore, shod horses “go” from the forges to the beginning of the avenue, while unshod horses, on the contrary, face towards Kuznechny Lane.

Compare for yourself))) specially photographed)))

There is another interesting famous legend. In Russia, everything related to the genitals, for some reason, is quickly gaining fame ...)))
As if Klodt was cheated on by his wife and he managed to portray between the legs of one horse appearance your offender. Klodt generally has an interesting story of marriage worthy of a separate post. They didn’t want to give away the girl he liked for him. Her parents considered him a rogue. Like, he only knows how to sculpt horses ...

According to another version, this is Napoleon Bonaparte himself.

The facial features of the lover of Klodt's wife have gone into the anal horse of history, but the silhouette of Napoleon's face is really guessed.

The baron and his horses were glorified even in folk ditties:

Baron von Klodt presented to the cross
For being on the Anichkov Bridge
To the surprise of all Europe
He put up 4 naked women.

There was a legend among the people that Klodt died due to frustration, because. as it turned out that two horses on the bridge were missing tongues in their mouths.

And not in vain - the bridge suffered from artillery raids. Granite parapets and railing sections were damaged. The crossing has become a monument to the blockade: on the granite pedestal of the horses, they did not specifically restore the trace from fragments of a Nazi artillery shell.

View of the Fontanka.

View of the Fontanka on the other side of the bridge))) then...

And now ... pay attention, before the bridge was called not Anichkov, but AnichKIN or Anichkovsky. This can be seen on the postcards above in the signatures.

A couple of jokes about the bridge and Klodt))))

A policeman caught a drunk worker who was writing from a bridge to the Fontanka. He brought him to the sculptures and said .... you see what is written here! it's a cultural place! even carved on stone ... Baron Klodt poured! And the worker to him ... what did they fight for !? So you can take a piss for a baron, but you can’t for a worker?

The Anichkov Bridge was previously called the "Bridge of 18 Eggs" ... people, horses ... and the policeman who was always there)))) Now it is called the Bridge of 16 Eggs - no more policemen and now no one guards the sculptures))) however, I’m lying. Don't call him that... a joke.

And finally ...))) During the fight against alcoholism in St. Petersburg, they said that only 4 people in St. Petersburg do not drink - those on the Anichkov Bridge))) they say they have no time, they keep horses.

Infa and a number of paintings and engravings (C) Internet, Wikipedia and other places on the Internet.

A lot is connected with the horses created by the famous and most original sculptor Pyotr Karlovich Klodt. different stories, more like bikes. We will not retell them all - only two and one more real case from life. We will talk about horses on the Anichkov Bridge, thrown across the Fontanka River and serving as part of Nevsky Prospekt in St. Petersburg.

Wife's lover out of luck

They say that Klodt was cheated on by his wife. He figured out the seducer. But he did not kill, did not challenge him to a duel, but ... immortalized in sculpture. More precisely, in her part. More precisely, in the genitals of one of the four horses on the Anichkov Bridge. It is difficult to see the face in the photo, and it does not give full view. True, it’s not easy to see on the horse itself if you don’t know this and don’t specifically look for it. Forgive me, we looked under the tail of each horse, everything is fine everywhere, and only under one is there really a face. We circled the "face" of the seducer of Klodt's wife with a red line. Hint: the nose is pointing down.

For those who decide to check: we are talking about the horse, which is located on the odd side of Nevsky Prospekt on the other side of the Fontanka, which is closer to the Admiralty.

“Find me now the fifth f…”

We took this legend from the book “History of St. Petersburg in a City Anecdote” by the famous St. Petersburg historian and writer Naum Sindalovsky, whose works we highly recommend. When you read them, you begin to understand that history northern capital if before that he knew, then only on top.

One wise guy in the reign of Nicholas I once wrote on one of the horses:

"Baron von Klodt presented to the cross
For being on the Anuchkov Bridge
To the surprise of all Europe
Four asses are set…”

Nicholas I, right on the police report, wrote an order:

“Find me now the fifth ass
And paint Europe on it!”

By the way, in our times, naked men with horses at some Petersburg politicians would obviously arouse unhealthy interest. In general, it is even strange that so far none of the local politicians, who have become jokes in themselves due to their stupidity, has demanded that Klodt's sculptures be dismantled and melted down, for example, for a monument to Putin. Apparently, they are afraid that the monument will get. More precisely, the place where Nicholas I intended to draw a map of part of the continent.

If you have a horse, you can sit on it

One evening on November 20 of some recent year (late 90s - early 2000s), a well-known St. Petersburg businessman from sea ​​port Petersburg, who later held leading federal positions, celebrated his birthday.

He celebrated so well that by the time his car was passing over the Anichkov Bridge, he could only mumble that she had to stop. Thank God the driver was sober and slowed down. The businessman showed his assistants with the use of mooing and gestures at the horse. They were surprised. Then we realized what the boss wants. After a while, he was already on horseback and, probably, in his thoughts he even raced somewhere at a trot or gallop. A police (then there was still a police) car also parked nearby, but the law enforcement officers quickly calmed down with what they usually calm down. Actually, there was no serious violation of the order anyway.

What is interesting: the birthday of the Anichkov Bridge in its modern interpretation, that is, with horses, also falls on November 20. It was opened on this day in 1841. Who knows, maybe the spirit of Pyotr Karlovich, having settled into a drunken St. Petersburg businessman, came to congratulate his most famous brainchild.

Anichkov Bridge is one of the most famous in St. Petersburg. The name of the bridge was named after Lieutenant Colonel M.O. Anichkov, who commanded the construction battalion that built the bridge. The length of the crossing was 150 meters, blocking not only the Fontanka, but also the swampy floodplain of the river.

In 1715, Emperor Peter I issued a decree: "After the Bolshaya Neva on the Fountain River, in the future, create a bridge." By May 1716, the work was completed and across the Nameless Erik, as the Fontanka was then called, a wooden multi-span beam bridge on pile supports was built, blocking both the channel itself and the swampy floodplain. It was of light construction with a narrow roadway. And although the drawings of that bridge have not been preserved, it is known that it was one of those wooden bridges that were massively built at that time, and therefore, most likely, its structures were upholstered with boards and painted like stone rustication to give the structure a “representative” look. . The bridge was built by the forces of the engineering battalion, commanded by engineer-lieutenant colonel Mikhail Anichkov. Anichkov's battalion was located on the banks of the Fontanka in an old Finnish village, nicknamed since then "Anichkova Sloboda"

Back in the time of Peter the Great, the bridge was rebuilt: in 1721 the crossing was expanded, the bridge became eighteen-span. The middle part was made liftable, since by that time the Fontanka had already been cleared and deepened, and ships began to sail along it. This bridge underwent a major overhaul in 1726 and 1742, and in 1749 the architect Semyon Volkov built a new wooden bridge, which did not differ much from the typical bridges of that time. According to the surviving drawing of 1750 "Plan and facade of the Anichkov bridge" by van Boles, the bridge was a simple beam system with a lifting span. The lifting devices of the middle part were made in the form of "cranes". Eighteen arched spans were preserved, treated to look like stone rust. The fence was a row of wooden balusters standing between pedestals topped with vases or balls. According to one version, the crossing was fortified in order to deliver to the king a gift from the Shah of Iran - elephants. Until the end of the 18th century, the Fontanka served as the border of the city, so the bridge served as a kind of checkpoint. The bridge was a checkpoint

AT mid-eighteenth century, the city stepped over its natural border and began to be built up on the territory of the former suburbs. This explains the extensive activity of the Commission on the stone structure of St. Petersburg and Moscow to regulate small rivers and canals, according to the projects of which, from 1780 to 1789, work was carried out to equip the Fontanka. Under the leadership of General F. W. Bauer, stone coastal walls with slopes to the water were erected, as well as seven stone bridges of the same type with medium drawbridges and towers on bulls. The authorship of the project is attributed to J.-R. Perrone, however, there is no documentary evidence of this. Since that time, only one similar bridge has survived - the Lomonosov Bridge, in fact, it can be used to judge the architecture of the Anichkov Bridge. The side spans of the bridge were the same in size and were covered with box stone vaults, the middle span was made of wood and opened to let small ships and barges through. Between the four granite tower superstructures, which rested on river supports, heavy chains were stretched, which served to lift the canvases of the adjustable part.


By the beginning of the 40s of the 19th century, the carriageway of Nevsky Prospekt was much wider than the Anichkov Bridge. In addition, the middle wooden part of the bridge, designed at one time for the movement of carriages and carts along it, turned out to be unsuitable. The project for the reconstruction of the bridge, drawn up under the leadership of Lieutenant General A. D. Gotman by Major Engineer I. F. Butazts with the participation of engineer I. Reder, was approved by Nicholas I in December 1840. In 1841, the old bridge was dismantled and a new one was built in seven months. In January 1842, the grand opening of the new crossing took place. The current appearance of the bridge was acquired in 1841-42, when the bridge was rebuilt and expanded, the towers disappeared. Three spans, covered with gentle vaults, were laid out of brick, the bridge supports and spans were lined with granite, cast-iron railings appeared with alternating paired images of seahorses and mermaids according to a drawing by the Berlin architect Karl Schinkel. Exactly the same railings were already at that time in Berlin on the Palace Bridge. Granite pedestals for statues also appeared, on which sculptures “Horse Tamers” were erected, commissioned by the sculptor P. K. Klodt to decorate the Admiralteyskaya Embankment. The original project also included the installation of bronze vases in the middle of the bridge (above each of the pillars). This point of the project was abandoned, leaving the pedestals to the descendants as a keepsake


The operation of the new bridge revealed serious design flaws, which already in 1843 led to deformations in the vaults. Periodic studies of 1843, 1847, 1855, 1899 recorded that destructive process continues. An inspection on October 9, 1902 revealed that the condition of the bridge was threatening. The reasons for the destruction of the bridge are seen in the fact that the rigid granite cladding was not sufficiently reliably connected with the easily compressible brickwork of the vaults. Due to the lack of reliable insulation, water entered the cracks, in places where dissimilar materials came into contact, destroying the vaults under the influence of natural forces - frost, winds, etc.


It took almost five years to design a new bridge, because in the process of solving a simple and clear technical problem, opposing views on the role of structures in education architectural forms. So the first project, completed by the preparatory commission of city railways on behalf of the City Duma, provided for the preservation appearance a bridge with the replacement of stone vaulted structures with curvilinear metal beams with a hinged metal flooring painted “under granite”. There was a variant according to which it was planned to attach a pendant made of thin granite slabs from the bottom and sides. The aim of these projects was to build a bridge of a thrustless system, but similar in form to the existing one. In the end, the project was approved by the City Duma, but its implementation was opposed by the Academy of Arts, and later by the Construction Committee of the Ministry of Internal Affairs.


The reconstruction of the Anichkov Bridge was carried out in 1906-1908 under the guidance of the architect P. V. Shchusev. The restructuring of the vaults was carried out in sections, leaving the seam between them unfilled. As a result of the reconstruction, there were bulls and the abutments remained the same, the brick vaults were laid along a box curve with an arrow of 1: 7.74. The brick vaults are lined with pink granite. All bridge structures are insulated with rolled lead. The length of the spans was: the middle one - 12.5 m, the outer ones - 12.6 m each. The width of the bridge was 37.9 m, of which the carriageway occupies 31.9 m.


The first two sculptures, “A Horse with a Walking Young Man” and “A Young Man Taking a Horse by the Bridle”, cast in bronze, appeared on the western side in 1841. The sculptures on the eastern shore were the same as the western ones, but were temporary from plaster painted in bronze. Only the bronze horses cast by him to replace and barely cooled down directly from the foundry yard were presented by Nicholas I to the Prussian king Friedrich Wilhelm IV. They are still in Berlin. In 1844, the oriental plaster sculptures were finally replaced with bronze ones, but they did not stand for long, two years later Nicholas I presented them to the “King of the Two Sicilies” for the hospitality shown to the Russian Empress during a trip to Italy and in 1846 ended up in Naples. Subsequently, copies of Klodt's horses ended up in Peterhof, Strelna, and the Moscow estate of the Golitsyns - Kuzminki

Each time they were removed from the bridge and replaced with plaster copies. Finally, in 1851 the bridge was finally completed. Klodt did not repeat the previous sculptures, but created two new compositions, as a result, the statues began to depict four different stages of conquering a horse. The statues left the bridge twice more. In 1941, during the blockade, they were removed and buried in the garden of the Anichkov Palace, and in 2000 they were taken away for restoration and for the 300th anniversary of the city. In the 1900s in Moscow, on the Begovaya Alley near the Moscow Hippodrome, copies of the sculptures were installed, made by the grandson of P. K. Klodt, the sculptor K. A. Klodt with the participation of S. M. Volnukhin. Interestingly, the statues of horses that “look” towards the Admiralty have horseshoes on their hooves, while the statues of horses that look towards the Uprising Square do not have horseshoes. A common legend explains this by the fact that in the 18th century there were foundries (from where the avenue actually got its name) and forges were located on Liteiny Prospekt. Therefore, shod horses “go” from the forges to the beginning of the avenue, while unshoeed horses, on the contrary, face in the direction of Liteiny Prospekt.


During the blockade of Leningrad, the bridge was significantly damaged by artillery raids. Granite parapets and railing sections were damaged. The crossing became a monument to the blockade: on the granite pedestal of Klodt's horses, they did not specifically restore the trace from fragments of a German artillery shell. Equestrian groups were buried in the courtyard of the Palace of Pioneers. Boxes of seeded grass were placed on granite pedestals. The bridge was badly damaged by direct bomb hits. But even before the end of the war, it was restored, and the equestrian statues were returned to their place on the eve of May 1, 1945.


In the mid-1990s, a major reconstruction of the cast-iron fences of the bridge was carried out. They were copied and re-cast at the enterprise of the Federal Nuclear Center in the city of Snezhinsk Chelyabinsk region. About it little known fact evidenced by the emblem of the city of Snezhinsk, which can be found on the casting of the railing


A. Blok wrote about the sculptures of the Anichkov Bridge.

Anichkov bridge spread across the Fontanka River along the line of Nevsky Prospekt. Of the small bridges - Anichkov Bridge is the most famous in St. Petersburg. Despite the quite ordinary architecture of the bridge itself, the sculptural group of Klodt “The Taming of the Horse by Man” made Anichkov Bridge actually one of business cards St. Petersburg. The total length of the bridge is 54.6 meters, width - 37.9 meters.

In 1715, by order of Peter I, at the intersection of Nevsky Prospekt and the river. Fontanka, the construction of a wooden bridge with a barrier began, which was successfully completed in 1716. It is worth noting here that the construction of the crossing across the river was carried out by a construction battalion under the command of Lieutenant Colonel engineer M.O. Anichkov.

Hence the name - Anichkov Bridge. And the old Finnish village on the Fontanka, where the battalion was stationed, has since become known as "Anichkova Sloboda". Folk legends that interpret the origin of the names of the bridge and the settlement, associating them with the name of a certain Anna (or Anechka), as well as the emphasis on the first syllable, are fundamentally wrong. The accent on the second syllable is considered correct - Anichkov bridge and Anichkov settlement.

In 1721, a reconstruction was carried out to expand the Anichkov Bridge. In 1726, the bridge was converted into a drawbridge for the passage of masted ships along the Fontanka. Next overhaul repair of the Anichkov bridge took place in 1741 - the old piles were replaced with new ones. In 1749, according to the project of the architect Volkov, a virtually new crossing was built across the Fontanka.

In 1780 - 1789, work was carried out to improve the Fontanka. Under the leadership of General F.V. Bauer, granite embankments with comfortable descents to the water were rebuilt. According to the project of the architect J.-R. Perrone, seven stone bridges of the same type were erected. One of them was reconstructed in 1783-1787 Anichkov bridge. The rebuilt bridge consisted of three spans. Two spans were made of granite, the middle draw span was wooden, and there were towers with draw units on the abutments of the bridge. It should be noted that until the end XVIII century The Fontanka River was the border of the city and the Anichkov Bridge served as the border bridge of the city.

By 1840 Anichkov bridge turned out to be much narrower, by that time, the carriageway of Nevsky Prospekt. In addition, the wooden span of the crossing fell into disrepair. And in 1841-1842 the bridge was completely rebuilt according to engineering projects I.F. Butats. Three spans were laid out of brick, the abutments of the bridge were lined with marble and a cast-iron fence was installed with paired fragments of mermaids and seahorses according to the sketches of the German architect Karl Schinkel. Also, the bridge was equipped with granite pedestals, on which sculptures of the series “Conquest of the Horse by Man” were installed, made by an outstanding Russian sculptor P.K. Klodtom. At the rate finance ministry almost 200 thousand silver rubles were spent on the construction of the bridge.

Curious construction history statues "Taming the horse". Initially, equestrian groups were ordered by Klodt to be installed on the pier of the Admiralteyskaya Embankment opposite the Academy of Arts. However, sphinxes brought from Egypt were installed there, and at the suggestion of the sculpture itself, it was decided to install a pair of Klodt's horses on the western side of the Anichkov Bridge. On the eastern side, their plaster copies were temporarily installed, to replace which bronze statues of horses were soon cast. However, by order of Nicholas I, they went straight from the foundry to Germany as a gift to the King of Prussia, Friedrich Wilhelm IV. Klodt again began work on sculptures and in 1844 new bronze statues were erected instead of plaster statues, but they were not destined to stand for long. Nicholas I presented these horses to the Sicilian king Ferdinand II, and again plaster copies were placed on the Anichkov Bridge. At this time, Klodt decides to create completely new sculptures, continuing storyline"Horse Conquest by Man", and refuse to copy the horses of the western side of the bridge. Finally, in 1850 on pedestals east side two new bronze sculptures were installed, and the Anichkov Bridge acquired its current appearance.

Interestingly, the horses "looking" to the side Palace Square savvy, but the horses that “look” towards Liteiny Prospekt are not. Around this fact There is a version that since tsarist times there were forges and foundries on Liteiny Prospekt, then unshod horses “go” towards the forges, and shod horses, on the contrary, from Liteiny Prospekt. Another curious fact is that the sculptures of horses had a real prototype - the Arabian trotter Amalatbek.
In creating drawings for the statues, Klodt was assisted by his daughter, who, saddling the horse, reared him up, and the sculptor made sketches.

Further history of Anichkov bridge continued in 1902, when its condition was recognized as emergency, and in 1906-1908 repairs were carried out. During the Great Patriotic War and the blockade of Leningrad, Klodt's sculptures were buried underground in the courtyard of the current Pioneer Palace. However, even before the end of the war, Klodt's horses were returned to their place. In 2000, the bronze statues of horses were restored under the guidance of the sculptor V.G. Sorin, and in 2008 a planned overhaul bridge.

Many legends and legends of St. Petersburg are connected with the Anichkov Bridge. What in them is fiction, and what is the truth is difficult to judge. For example, they say that one of Klodt's horses, located on the side of Gostiny Dvor and closest to it, has a profile of Napoleon instead of a distinctive gender. Annoyed the same french emperor Klodt by darkening the sculptor's honeymoon with persistent courtship of his young wife. Be that as it may, in fact, they are certainly rightfully considered one of the brightest symbols of St. Petersburg.