Universitetskaya Embankment () is a 1.2 km long embankment on the right bank of the

Bolshaya Neva The Great Neva or Bolshaya Neva () is the largest armlet of the river Neva. It starts near the Old Saint Petersburg Stock Exchange and Rostral Columns, Spit of Vasilievsky Island (easternmost tip of the island). The Great Neva is long; the width ...

, on

Vasilievsky Island Vasilyevsky Island (, Vasilyevsky Ostrov, V.O.) is an island in St. Petersburg, Russia, bordered by the Bolshaya Neva and Malaya Neva Rivers (in the delta of the Neva River) in the south and northeast, and by Neva Bay of the Gulf of Finl ...

Saint Petersburg Saint Petersburg, formerly known as Petrograd and later Leningrad, is the List of cities and towns in Russia by population, second-largest city in Russia after Moscow. It is situated on the Neva, River Neva, at the head of the Gulf of Finland ...

Russia Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...

. Starting at the

Spit of Vasilievsky Island The Old Saint Petersburg Stock Exchange (also '':wikt:bourse, Bourse'') and Rostral Columns, located in Saint Petersburg in the Russian Federation, are significant examples of Greek Revival architecture. Designed by French architect Thomas de T ...

, it spans between

Palace Bridge Palace Bridge (, ''Dvortsoviy Most''), a road- and foot-traffic bascule bridge, spans the Neva River in Saint Petersburg between Palace Square and Vasilievsky Island. Like every other Neva bridge (except for Big Obukhovsky Bridge), it is dr ...

and

Blagoveshchensky Bridge The Annunciation Bridge ( - ''Blagoveshchensky most''; from 1855 to 1918 Nikolaevsky Bridge, ; from 1918 to 2007 called Lieutenant Schmidt Bridge, ) is the first permanent bridge built across the Neva River in Saint Petersburg, Russia. It connec ...

. The bank was lined with

granite Granite ( ) is a coarse-grained (phanerite, phaneritic) intrusive rock, intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly coo ...

in 1805–1810 (eastern part), 1831–1834 (western part) and the 1850s (near Blagoveshchensky Bridge). It features an ensemble of

Petrine Baroque Petrine Baroque (Russian: Петровское барокко) is a style of 17th and 18th century Baroque architecture and decoration favoured by Peter the Great and employed to design buildings in the newly founded Russian capital, Saint Peters ...

buildings of the early 18th century, including the

Kunstkamera The Kunstkamera (, derived from German ''Kunstkammer'' lit. "art chamber") formally organized as the Russian Academy of Science's Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography (, ''Muzey antropologii i etnografii imeni Petra Velikogo R ...

Twelve Collegia The Twelve Collegia or Twelve Colleges () is the largest Petrine Baroque, edifice from the Petrine era remaining in Saint Petersburg. It was designed by Domenico Trezzini and Theodor Schwertfeger and built from 1722 to 1744.300 years of Saint Pe ...

Menshikov Palace The Menshikov Palace () is a Petrine Baroque edifice in Saint Petersburg, situated on Universitetskaya Embankment of the Bolshaya Neva on Vasilyevsky Island.It is not to be confused with the Menshikov Palace in Oranienbaum, Russia, built by th ...

, as well as the neoclassical building of the Academy of Arts. The embankment was formerly connected to the left bank through Isaakiyevsky Pontone Bridge, constructed in 1819–1841 in front of Senate Square. One of the campuses of

Saint Petersburg State University Saint Petersburg State University (SPBGU; ) is a public research university in Saint Petersburg, Russia, and one of the oldest and most prestigious universities in Russia. Founded in 1724 by a decree of Peter the Great, the university from the be ...

(hosted in the Twelve Collegia and several other buildings), Saint Petersburg branch of the

Russian Academy of Sciences The Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS; ''Rossíyskaya akadémiya naúk'') consists of the national academy of Russia; a network of scientific research institutes from across the Russian Federation; and additional scientific and social units such ...

, Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography (hosted in the Kunstkamera) and Zoological Museum are all situated along the embankment. The embankment was named after the university in 1887.

Sphinxes

A quay in front of the

Imperial Academy of Arts The Imperial Academy of Arts, informally known as the Saint Petersburg Academy of Arts, was an art academy in Saint Petersburg, founded in 1757 by Ivan Shuvalov, the founder of the Imperial Moscow University, under the name ''Academy of th ...

building, adorned with two authentic

sphinx A sphinx ( ; , ; or sphinges ) is a mythical creature with the head of a human, the body of a lion, and the wings of an eagle. In Culture of Greece, Greek tradition, the sphinx is a treacherous and merciless being with the head of a woman, th ...

es of Pharaoh

Amenhotep III Amenhotep III ( , ; "Amun is satisfied"), also known as Amenhotep the Magnificent or Amenhotep the Great and Hellenization, Hellenized as Amenophis III, was the ninth pharaoh of the Eighteenth Dynasty of Egypt, Eighteenth Dynasty. According to d ...

brought in 1832 from

Thebes, Egypt Thebes (, , ''Thēbai''), known to the ancient Egyptians as Waset, was an ancient Egyptian city located along the Nile about south of the Mediterranean. Its ruins lie within the modern Egyptian city of Luxor. Thebes was the main city of the fo ...

, was designed by

Konstantin Thon Konstantin Andreyevich Thon or Ton (; October 26, 1794 – January 25, 1881) was a Russian architect who was one of the most notable architects during the reign Nicholas I. His major works include the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour, the Grand ...

and built in 1832–1834. {{coord, 59.9392, N, 30.2984, E, display=title Streets in Saint Petersburg Cultural heritage monuments of federal significance in Saint Petersburg