Sightseeing

SAVIOR ON THE SPILLED BLOOD CHURCH The marvelous multicolored onion-domed church was built by the architect Alfred Parland to the order of Alexander III who wanted to commemorate his father Alexander II assassinated on the 1st of March 1881 by the member of revolutionary organisation called the People’s Will. A special contest was held for the best project of the church and the main requirement was that is should be erected on the very spot where a terrorist Ignat Grinevitsky mortally wounded the tsar by tossing a bomb at his royal carriage. A first design contest was held late in 1881. the sketches imitated either Thon’s works, or St.Sophia at Constantinopole, or mediaeval Novgorodian churches. The Emperor liked none, and a second round was appointed for march and April 1882. Alexander chose far from the best option offered by academician Alfred Parland and Ignaty Malyshev – a church of five copulas reminiscent of the St.Basil Cathedral on the Red Square in Moscow. The construction of the church lasted 1895-1907 and was almost entirely funded by the imperial family and thousands of private donators. Both inside and outside, the Cathedral boasts luxurious décor - unique mosaics, glazed brick, ornamental architraves, frames, corbels, ceramic and colored glazed tiles. Five copulas of the church (1000 square meters in area) are covered with jewelry enamel. The facades are decorated with semi-precious stones and mosaics created by the celebrated Russian artists – Vanetsov and Nesterov. And on the small plaques one can see the coat-of-arms of different cities and Russian provinces which donated money for the construction of this church. In the niches of the ground floor there are twenty granite panels which record the major events of Alexander’s reign: in 1861 he freed the Russian serfs from their tiers to the masters and undertook a rigorous program of military, judicial and urban reforms, never before attempted in Russia. In 1892 a broad wooden bridge was laid across from the belfry of the Savior on Spilled Blood, forming a block stone paved area I front of the entrance to the church. And according to the project by Parland, an arch of railing, consisting of 52 links with stylized plant ornament, was made on the Winkler Plant in 1903-1907 and bordered southern, eastern and northern sections of the square. The giant church with its central copula at the height of 81 meter was consecrated on the 31st of August 1907, but since this multicolored structure stood out among the austere masterpieces of the Alexandrine Empire style, many citizens disliked it. Te church was closed for the services in 1930s, when Bolsheviks were destroying churches nationwide. And in 1931 they performed one of the sacrilegious acts by opening a museum o the People’s Will in the church which commemorated its victim. The museum was closed in 1934 and for the next 20 years it has been under reconstruction. And only in 1997 the Cathedral was finally repaired and re-consecrated in all its dazzling former glory.

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