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# Look at the Winter Palace from the start of Nevsky Prospect, from Palace Bridge or from the garden by the western façade, and you cannot fail to notice the tower rising above its general bulk
- URL: https://theparnassian.com/en/esli-posmotret-na-zimnii-dvorets-ot-nachala-nevskogo-prospekta-s-dvortsovogo-mosta-ili-iz-skvera-u-zapadnogo-fasada-nevozmozhno-ne-zametit-vozvyshaiushchuiusia-nad-obshchim-obemom-bashn/
- Published: 2022-06-03T08:12:57.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-01T05:38:38.000Z
- Author: Alexandr Radayev
- Tags: Architecture, Museums, Science, Saint Petersburg

Look at the Winter Palace from the start of Nevsky Prospect, from Palace Bridge or from the garden by the western façade, and you cannot fail to notice the tower rising above its general bulk. This is the telegraph tower, or optical telegraph tower. A semaphore system of communication was established in the Winter Palace at the beginning of the 19th century: special arms with lanterns were then fitted to the tower, and each of their positions encoded particular symbols or phrases. Some 8-12 kilometres away stood the next tower in the chain, which received the message and relayed it onward exactly as it came; in time the line stretched as far as Warsaw, and the necessary information could be sent a distance of 1,200 km in 20 minutes. By the end of the century the electric telegraph had supplanted the semaphore, but for its day optical telegraphy remained the fastest means of communication. Today the tower houses the Department of the East, but in the Hermitage talk keeps surfacing of restoring the optical telegraph to working order: how splendid it would be to read cipher messages on the walls of the country's foremost museum!

![](https://theparnassian.com/content/images/2026/09/photo_6701@03-06-2022_11-12-57.jpg)

![](https://theparnassian.com/content/images/2026/09/photo_6702@03-06-2022_11-12-57.jpg)

![](https://theparnassian.com/content/images/2026/09/photo_6703@03-06-2022_11-12-57.jpg)

![](https://theparnassian.com/content/images/2026/09/photo_6704@03-06-2022_11-12-57.jpg)