Saint Nicholas chapel in Novosibirsk

A small chapel of St. Nicholas on the Krasny avenue is the symbol of Novosibirsk. It was built by local merchants in memory of the 300th anniversary of the Romanov Dynasty in 1914.

At the time of its foundation the city was called Novo-Nikolayevsk and not Novosibirsk, and the avenue was called Novo-Nikolayevskiy and not Krasny. It was there that the local charity organization «Yasli» (nursery) obtained from the emperor Nicholas II the permit to build a chapel in honor of the celestial patron of the city St. Nicholas. The construction was funded by local merchant – members of that charity organization.

In the Soviet times there appeared a version that the chapel was located in the geographical center of the Russian Empire, however, it wasn’t officially maintained, and besides, the geographical center of modern Russia is in the other place. 

In 1929, fifteen years after its foundation, the Bolsheviks, «considering the wishes of the working masses», pulled it down and erected a monument to a Komsomol member-hammerer and then to Stalin (the latter was also taken down in the 50th of the past century) on its site.

The reconstruction of St. Nicholas chapel began in 1991, a bit farther from its original site. The chapel had been consecrated already in 1993, and after that many citizens of Novosibirsk began to consider it the symbol of their city.