In the house on the corner of Gorokhovaya Street and Fontanka Embankment, you can find the most mystical city object — the Rotunda.

The building itself was erected at the end of the XVIII century and soon became a monument of architecture of the classical era, known as the Evmentiev House. Evmentyev was indeed one of the owners, but another remarkable thing is that initially the land on which the building stands belonged to the farmer Savva Yakovlev. It is for this reason that it is also called the Yakovlev-Evmentyev House.

The house is not conspicuous, it is a typical building for St. Petersburg. It's all about the Rotunda, a round room with six free standing columns. The curves of the walls follow the stairs, as if striving endlessly upwards.

The Rotonda received the title of cult place in the 70s and 80s of the last century, the time when informal movements appeared among Soviet youth. Representatives of different subcultures — rockers, hippies, punks — gathered here. The Rotunda has been visited by Kinchev and Tsoi several times, and for many, this is why it has become a landmark place.

There is a belief that wishes written on the walls of the Rotunda tend to come true. But this is not the only legend. Someone called the place the center of the universe, since the Rotunda was located at the intersection of the diagonals of Peter's hexagon. There is also a legend about a young man who went down to the basement of a house and ended up in a parallel world, coming back quite old, although he spent about 15 minutes there. Many people believe that a daredevil who finds himself in the basement of the building will surely go crazy, and Satan can be seen here at midnight. In ancient times, the Rotunda served as a meeting place for masons and was a favorite place for Rasputin.

Not so long ago, the entrance to this place was paid at the request of residents. Now, to get to the Rotunda, you have to pay 70 rubles. This solves two problems at once: it saves the residents of the house from noisy visitors at night, and the collected money goes to the restoration of the attraction.