"At about six in the evening we arrived safely in St. Petersburg, which has changed so much since my departure from there that I did not recognize it at all. From the very beginning we entered a long and wide alley, (a small part of the road not far from the Admiralty), and justly called the avenue, because its end is almost invisible. It was laid only in a few years and exclusively by the hands of captured Swedes. Despite the fact that the trees planted on both sides of it in three or four rows are still small, it is unusually beautiful in its enormous length and the purity in which it is kept (captured Swedes must clean it every Saturday), and it makes a wonderful appearance , which I have not seen anywhere else. On the Admiralty, a beautiful and huge building at the end of this road, there is a beautiful and rather tall spitz, which goes directly opposite the avenue."