ST PETERSBURG DAY 3, AFTERNOON ADVENTURES

After leaving the market, the photographic record grows a little hazy.  We had a very nice lunch featuring singing and dancing, and a quite fine chicken kiev.

By then it was raining.  Really raining.  Hard.  So some left for the bus, but we headed across the street to the Cathedral of Christ on the Spilled Blood.  Since we know you are interested, in Russian:  Церковь Спаса на Крови, Tserkovʹ Spasa na Krovi.  

It looks a lot like You Know What in Moscow.  


This church was built on the site where Tsar Alexander II was assassinated and was dedicated in his memory.  At the time there was unrest because of the continuing enslavement of the serfs, which was becoming increasingly untenable at the time.  The assassination may have abruptly altered world history, since turned out that when he was attacked, the Tsar had in his pocket a proclamation that would have eased the serfs' situation considerably.  Had the assassination not occurred, some speculate that the revolution might have been avoided, and Russia might have transitioned into something resembling western democracies.  

Construction began in 1883 and not completed until 1907.  So although it looks much like St. Basil's in Moscow that was built hundreds of years earlier, it is fairly modern.

It was raining pretty hard, we have few photos of the exterior (check in another day for more), but we were dazzled by the interior.

The Church contains over 7500 square yards of mosaics, perhaps more than any other church in the world.  Dazzling.

It was never actually used as a church, but as a memorial to Alexander II.  It was looted in the revolution, and closed in 1930.  It was used as a morgue during WWII, and then as a vegetable warehouse.  Restoration took 27 years, from 1970 to 1997.  It has not been consecrated as a church, so it is now officially a Mosaic Museum.  No wonder. Everywhere you look there is color, movement, depth and richness, all from the magnificent mosaics.

Dazzling.

From the church we went to an excellent lecture about Russian ballet, and a tour of the Rimsky-Korsokov Museum.