Smolny is an island of beauty, freedom, joy and peace. It belongs to the Nevsky expanse and the Ladoga wind. The soul rests in the silence of the gardens, rejoices in the heavenly and river blueness. Smolny is beautiful in the coups of flowering lilacs, in snowdrifts, in the gold of maple leaves. Two and a half centuries ago, they created it to educate the soul and to relax from worldly concerns.