On Petrovskaya Embankment, near the museum «Peter I House», is a descent to the water, with two granite statues of lions on both sides. They are called Shi-Tza lions. The statues were brought from China and placed there in 1907.
The following inscription is cut on the pedestals of the lions: «The Shi-Tza lions from Jilin, Manchuria, moved to St. Petersburg in 1907. The gift of general of infantry N. I. Grodekov».
There was a tradition to place guardian lions on both sides of the entrances to temples and administrative buildings in ancient China. Lion is a mythical guardian of law and sacred buildings. It is a symbol of power. To the right of the entrance they usually place a lion pawing a ball (in Buddhism it is a symbol of knowledge), and to the left of the entrance – a lioness pawing a baby lion.
The sculptures one can see on Petrovskaya Naberezhnaya have the height of 4,5 m. They were made for a small joss house of governor Chan in Jilin, Manchuria. However they were too big for the temple and after the death of general Chan in 1904 his successor didn’t want to place the lions and gave them to Nikolai Grodekov, governor of Amur River region, instead. And Grodekov, having paid transport expenses, took the statues to St. Petersburg and gave them to the city.
