Red Canal

Red Canal (Russian: Красный канал, romanized: Krasny kanal) was an eighteenth-century waterway in Saint Petersburg.

Opened in the presence of Peter the Great and Tsarina Catherine in 1719, the canal became a popular site for the nobility to construct large townhouses.

[2][3] Together the two canals created an island, enclosing a roughly rectangular parcel of land, initially called simply Pustoi (Russian: Пустой), meaning "Empty" - after the trees that grew here were felled, and from the 1720s, the "Great Meadow" (Russian: Большой Луг), and in the present, the Field of Mars.

[7] With the completion of the Red Canal, the western edge of the Big Meadow became a popular site for the nobility to construct large townhouses.

Those that settled in the area included Charles Frederick, Duke of Holstein-Gottorp, Alexander Rumyantsev, Adam Veyde, and Pavel Yaguzhinsky, and Peter the Great's daughter, Elizabeth Petrovna.