The nine-domed Church of the Savior on Blood, built in a unique style of Russian architecture, is a priceless architectural monument and serves as a memorial to the tsar-martyr Alexander II, who met his death at this very place at the hands of terrorists.

The church has a complex history, and many unique stories, legends, and myths are connected with it. We will tell you all about this below.

Name of the church:
For 15 years, many assassination attempts were made on Alexander II, the fatal one being the eleventh. Such a number of attempts on one person's life had never been seen in world history. The terrorist act was carefully planned and thus succeeded when on March 13, 1881, the emperor, returning from a military parade at the Mikhailovsky Manege, was riding in his carriage along the embankment of the Catherine Canal. The revolutionary N. Rusakov threw the first bomb into it; several members of the entourage were seriously wounded, some fatally, but the tsar survived and refused to leave the scene immediately. One of the bodyguards, with the help of the crowd, subdued the attacker, another ran to report that the villain was caught. "Thank God, I survived, but..." the emperor said, pointing to the wounded moaning on the pavement. At that moment, a second bomb thrown by I. Grinevitsky, who was waiting for his moment, flew at his feet. When the gunpowder smoke cleared, the horrified crowd saw a bloodied body sprawled on the ground. "Quickly... to the palace... to die there," whispered the wounded to Grand Duke Mikhail Nikolaevich, who bent over him. These were his last words, and at 16:35, already in the Winter Palace, the emperor died. The son of the deceased, Alexander III, decided to immortalize his father's memory with a church on the site of his villainous murder. The words "on Blood" in the cathedral's name refer to the tsar's blood.

From the beginning to the completion of construction, and even to our time, the building of the Church of the Savior on Blood in Saint Petersburg continues to evoke a storm of emotions. The church received completely polarizing evaluations from both architects and city residents.

The history of the competition projects and construction has been preserved, and studying it is a quite typical story of large-scale construction projects. Changes in the country's policy under Alexander III, intrigues and interference from Church representatives; embezzlement and scandals.

Let's try to tell it briefly:

On April 27, 1881, the City Duma Commission for the Commemoration of Alexander II announced a competition to create a memorial church.

By December 31, the deadline for submitting competition entries, 26 projects were submitted for jury review. Most were in the "Byzantine style," with almost all prominent architects of the time among the authors: I. S. Kitner and A. L. Gun, V. A. Shreter, A. O. Tomishko, I. S. Bogomolov, and others.

Projects by architects Leonty Benois and Viktor Shreter. Photo: spbarchives.ru

Projects by architects Antoniy Tomishko and Ieronym Kitner. Photo: spbarchives.ru

By February 1882, the competition results were summarized, and the first prize was awarded to the project of Antoniy Tomishko, then a not very well-known architect. Tomishko's project and seven others were presented to the emperor, who rejected them all.

The point is that Alexander II’s ideology was not aimed at further continuation of autocratic reforms and Europeanization of Russia. The pre-Petrine Russian style, national in character, came to the forefront as justification for the inviolability of the tsar's power, reminding of the unity of the tsar and the people. The resolution stated: "...all projects, although very well composed, it is desirable that the church be built in the purely Russian taste of the 17th century, examples of which can be found, for example, in Yaroslavl, and that the very place where Emperor Alexander II was fatally wounded should be inside the church itself as a special chapel." The tsar wanted not an ordinary church but a memorial complex. Therefore, the appeal to images of Russian architecture of the 16th–17th centuries was quite logical.

The standards became the churches of Moscow and Yaroslavl, and of course, St. Basil's Cathedral in Moscow. Additionally, the hidden idea of building in pre-Petrine traditions was to ideologically connect Petersburg and Moscow. The competition was announced a second time and held very quickly, in March–April 1882.

Among the participants were L. N. Benois, Alb. N. Benois, R. A. Gedike, A. P. Kuzmin, N. V. Nabokov, A. I. Rezanov, N. L. Benois, N. F. Bryullov, P. Pavlinov, N. Sultanov, V. A. Kossov, V. A. Shreter, A. A. Parland ("Starina"). In total, 28 projects in the "main" stream and another 3 later, one of which became the key intrigue of this competition.

Suddenly, a project was submitted by a non-professional but a representative of the Church — a certain Archimandrite Ignatius. To be completely honest, he did have some relation to architecture. In his youth, then I. V. Malyshev studied painting at the Academy of Arts and studied ancient Russian architecture. Father Ignatius, using his connections, proposed "collaboration" to A. A. Parland to refine his project. Of course, Parland, whose own project had already been accepted by the commission, was not very interested, but Ignatius was very influential, communicated directly with the empress, and he agreed.

The joint competition project of Parland and Ignatius was accepted after the official end of the competition (among those three late submissions). And it was this project that Alexander III graciously approved on June 29, 1883.

Project by Alfred Parland. Photo: spbarchives.ru

In the first years after the start of construction, public opinion considered Archimandrite Ignatius the architect of the project, while Parland remained in the shadow of his colleague. Then public debates began.

A. N. Benois recalled: "...architect Parland, using his connections with the clergy and lower officials, brought his project to the sovereign, and his monstrous invention, presented in a very spectacular coloring, found the highest approval." Then the emperor recommended that the project be refined by Professor D. I. Grimm of the Academy of Arts; another architecture professor, I. V. Shtrom, also offered himself as a co-author in January 1883. He was refused, but his ideas were used, which naturally offended and outraged Shtrom.

Finally, in March 1883, a Construction Commission was formed, chaired by the president of the Academy of Arts, Grand Duke Vladimir Alexandrovich, and several leading architects of Russia. Following the commission's recommendations, Parland and his assistants were refining the project. They created several alternatives, one of which was approved on June 29, 1883. They did not stop there; the project was refined for another three years until May 1887. Further refinements were made during construction. The ceremonial laying took place in October 1883, and preparatory and earthworks lasted almost four years.

As a result, Alfred Parland ultimately became the sole author of the new building. Then a scandal erupted related to the embezzlement of state funds. In 1889, the president of the Academy and chairman of the Construction Commission, Grand Duke Vladimir Alexandrovich, allowed significant embezzlement; a new commission was convened only in 1892. In the end, all work was completed by 1907.

Some quotes from the press of that time reflecting the public conflict:

"On the whole, both the architecture of the newly erected church... and its interior decoration represent a remarkable phenomenon and deserve special attention... the harmony of architectural lines, beauty of forms, richness of materials, and perfection of technique place it among the best works of contemporary Russian architecture."

"Unfortunately, far from gifted in thought and execution..., but undoubtedly significant in the idea hovering over it."

"This pitiful imitation of St. Basil's Cathedral strikes with its ugliness, at the same time being a real blot on the ensemble of the Petersburg landscape," wrote A. N. Benois.

"Unprecedented architectural ugliness" of the church, this "shameful page of Russian art," "to destroy Parland's work without a trace, to tear down the monstrous cathedral to the ground," continued S. K. Makovsky.

"A barbaric example of artistic poverty" was how A. A. Rostislavov called the Church of the Savior on Blood, and V. Ya. Kurbatov wished that "they would soon forget about the pseudo-Russian buildings that have so spoiled Russian cities."

The Church of the Savior on Blood was built with voluntary donations collected throughout Russia as an atoning sacrifice of the entire people for the martyrdom of the tsar-liberator. Construction lasted 24 years and cost 4.6 million rubles. Construction work, which began in 1883, was completed only in 1907. On August 19, the church was consecrated by Metropolitan Anthony in the presence of Emperor Nicholas II and members of the imperial family. In the following year, 1908, the Chapel-Treasury of the Iveron Icon of the Mother of God was consecrated next to the church. Its main purpose was to store icons and other gifts presented in memory of Alexander II's death.

At the insistence of Alexander III, a canopy was arranged in the western part of the church over the place of the emperor Alexander II's fatal wounding. Under it, a part of the pavement and the canal embankment fence stained with the blood of the Tsar-Martyr have been preserved. Above the canopy is a bell tower with a large golden dome.

The Cathedral of the Resurrection of Christ on Blood was built using new construction technologies. The building was fully electrified: it housed almost 1,700 electric lamps. It is also interesting that the Savior on Blood was not the property of the Russian Orthodox Church; it was the private church of the imperial family and was under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Therefore, it was closed to the general public.

Only with the arrival of Soviet power, in 1920, did the church become a parish church.
On October 30, 1930, the Church of the Savior on Blood was closed; a year later, a decision was made to dismantle the building. Fortunately, no deadlines were set for this procedure. Thus, the Cathedral of the Resurrection of Christ stood until the beginning of the Great Patriotic War. During the Siege of Leningrad, the Savior on Blood functioned as a morgue. The bodies of deceased citizens were brought there, once again confirming its historical name. After the Great Patriotic War, the church housed a storage for decorations of the Small Opera Theater.

In 1968, the Savior on Blood was transferred under the protection of the State Inspection for the Protection of Monuments. Two years later, a decision was made to organize a branch of the "Isaac Cathedral" museum here. Religious services resumed in August 1997.

The church represents an asymmetrical group crowned with five domes, some of which have gilded coverings, and some are enameled. The central dome of the church is a tent-shaped structure, reaching a height of 81 meters — the year of Alexander II's death; another used number, 63, is the height to which one of the domes rises, and also the age of the emperor at that moment.

On the exterior walls of the church, inscriptions about Russia's achievements during the reign of Emperor Alexander II are applied. In the decoration of the Savior on Blood, the architects used various finishing materials: brick, marble, and granite, as well as enamel, gilded copper, and mosaic. The interior decoration of the church features especially abundant mosaics, covering a total area of 7,065 square meters. They were created in the workshop of the Russian mosaic artist Vladimir Frolov. The works were executed based on sketches by more than 30 artists, including such names as V. M. Vasnetsov, F. S. Zhuravlev, M. V. Nesterov, A. P. Ryabushkin, V. V. Belyaev, N. N. Kharlamov, and others. Today, the mosaic exposition of the Savior on Blood represents one of the largest collections of its kind in all of Europe.
Next to the Cathedral, across the road, is the Chapel-Treasury. It houses a separate museum and often hosts exhibitions. In 1961, during scientific and production restoration work on the central dome of the church by a group of industrial climbers, a 240 mm fascist shell was discovered in the rafters of the central dome. It had lain there for 18 years. The shell pierced the dome vault but got stuck in the vault's covering. It was extracted by a group led by former sapper V. Nikolaev, which included experienced specialists and climbers. The work was supervised by former pyrotechnician V. Demidov. The shell was carefully removed using a winch, after which it was taken away and destroyed in the Pulkovsky Heights area.

Some legends of the Savior on Blood

There is a legend that to save the church's decoration from the Bolsheviks, the crosses were removed and lowered to the bottom of the Griboedov Canal right next to the church. Later, when the Savior on Blood began to be restored but the crosses that crowned the church could not be found, an interesting incident happened: a passerby approached the restoration team and advised them to look for the decoration in the water. The workers decided to try and sent a team of divers to inspect the bottom; the crosses were indeed there, exactly where the stranger had indicated. However, this is more likely a myth, as no confirmation has been found.

Another curious legend, which came true in the early 1990s. For a long time, the church stood surrounded by scaffolding; I think the older generation remembers “I dream of taking the scaffolding off the Savior on Blood” by Rozenbaum. At that time, among the townspeople, there was an ironic belief that as soon as the scaffolding was removed from the Savior on Blood, the entire Soviet Union would collapse. Some may consider this a tall tale, while others attribute it to coincidence, but the fact remains: in 1991, the church was freed from scaffolding, and shortly thereafter, in August of the same year, Soviet power came to an end.

Besides the story of the famous ghost on the Griboedov Canal embankment, there is another mystical and mysterious legend that under the roof of the Savior on Blood there is an icon on which the fateful years for Russian history are visible — it shows 1917, 1941, and not only. It is believed that the icon possesses power and can predict turning points in Russian history, as other indistinct silhouettes of numbers can be seen on the canvas — possibly they will become clearer as a new tragedy approaches.