Anichkov Bridge

By the 1840s the 18th-century design, especially its large towers, was deemed unsuitable for the growing amount of traffic passing over the Anichkov Bridge along Nevsky Prospekt.

The Horse Tamers were designed by the Russian sculptor, Baron Peter Klodt von Jurgensburg and they rank among the city's most recognizable landmarks.

Guillaume Coustou's baroque marble horse tamers for Marly-le-Roi, the Chevaux de Marly, were resited at the opening to the Champs-Elysées, Paris, at the Revolution.

"Petersburg lore tells of Peter Klodt's death immediately upon embarrassing discovery that tongues had been omitted on two of the four sculptural horses".

In 1941, during the Second World War, when the bridge came under heavy fire from German artillery, the sculptures were removed from their platforms and buried in the nearby Anichkov Palace garden.