Savior on the Blood Cathedral in St.Petersburg

You can see one of the most beautiful churches in Russia, the Cathedral of Christ`s Resurrection often called Savior on the Blood Church, on Griboyedov Canal near Nevsky Avenue at the heart of Petersburg.

This is a memorial church built on the site of the murder of the Russian emperor Alexander II, who was the initiator of the cancellation of serfdom and other liberal reforms. Attempts on the life of the emperor began in 1866 and were the primary aim of the "Narodnaya Volya" ("People`s Freedom"). Totally, there were ten attempts, and the last attempt took place on March, 1 1881, when the revolutionary Ignatius Grinevetskiy threw a bomb under the feet of the emperor.

Almost immediately after the burial of the emperor it was decided to erect a memorial church later called Savior on the Blood Cathedral on that place. So that the embankment where the emperor was murdered could be made part of the future church, they had to narrow it. A chapel was erected on the pavement where the body of the emperor lay.

The building of Savior on the Blood Cathedral was commissioned to the architect Alfred Parland, who designed the church together with the archimandrite Ignatius of the Trinity Lavra of St. Sergius. The cathedral was designed in the Russian architecture style of 16 century and by its outlines strongly resembles St. Basil`s Cathedral in Moscow.

You should enter Savior on the Blood Cathedral to see the most beautiful mosaic panels performed in the Byzantine style. All walls, columns and vaults of the cathedral are covered by mosaics. You can see something similar at the Cathedral of St. Mark in Venice. There the area of mosaics is larger, but by their complexity the mosaics of Savior on the Blood Cathedral (Cathedral of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ) have no peers.

All pleasure boats pass by Savior on the Blood Cathedral. Nearby Mikhailovsky Garden and the Russian Museum are located, and if go a bit farther to the river Neva, you can see the Summer Garden and the Marble Palace.