Museum Complex St. Isaac's Cathedral

St. Isaac's Cathedral in St. Petersburg, created by the architect Auguste Montferrand, is an outstanding monument of Russian architecture of the 19th century and one of the greatest domed structures in the world, a symbol of imperial power embodied in stone.

The construction of St. Isaac's Cathedral lasted four decades and became a school of new technologies, many of which were used for the first time, including the rail track, a light metal dome, and the widespread use of electroforming in decorative decoration.

The facades of the cathedral are decorated with porticos with monolithic granite columns, which were cut down in the Püterlax quarry and delivered by water on barges to the construction site. The installation of these columns, which aroused the admiration of contemporaries, occupies a special place in the history of construction technology. Using scaffolding of the original design and gates, the column was installed in less than an hour. A model of a lifting scaffold, made in 1826, is displayed in the museum.

More than 350 works created by Russian sculptors in St. Isaac's Cathedral represent a unique ensemble of monumental and decorative sculpture of the 19th century.

The cathedral is decorated with sculptures of angels on the outer attic, angels with a lamp, evangelists and apostles on the pediments of the porticos. On the balustrade of the main dome there are 24 sculptures of angels and archangels (sculptor I. German), on the pediments of the porticoes there are high reliefs "The Resurrection of Christ" and "The Meeting of Isaac of Dalmatia with Emperor Valens" by F. Lemaire and "The Adoration of the Magi" and "Isaac Blessing the Emperor Theodosius" » works by I. Vitali.

In the niches of the walls of the southern and northern porticos are the works of P. Klodt and A. Loganovsky "Carrying the Cross", "Lamentation", "Massacre of the Innocents" and "The Appearance of an Angel to Shepherds".

The large outer doors of the temple were designed by I. Vitali; especially interesting are the western doors with the compositions "Sermon on the Mount", "The Resurrection of Lazarus" and "The Healing of the Paralytic".

The sculpture on the vaults, the drum of the dome and the iconostases is made of copper using the electroforming method, which was first used on such a scale during the construction of St. Isaac's Cathedral.

St. Isaac's Cathedral has preserved to our time the richest collection of Russian monumental religious and historical painting of the 1840-1850s.

103 wall paintings and 52 paintings on canvas were created by the largest representatives of the Russian academic school of that time, including V. K. Shebuev, F. A. Bruni, K. P. Bryullov, A. T. Markov, N. M. Alekseev, P. V. Basin, F. P. Bryullov, T. A. Neff, K. A. Moldavsky and others.

Grandiose in size (816 square meters) is the ceiling of the main dome by the great Karl Bryullov “Our Lady in Glory”.

The artistic decoration of St. Isaac's Cathedral gave rise to the revival of mosaic art in Russia in the 19th century. Here you can see 62 mosaics with a total area of ​​more than 500 square meters. Mosaic work began in 1851 and continued until 1914.

A brilliant example of mosaic copying is the Last Supper icon, made in 1879-1887 after the original by S. Zhivago by mosaicists I. P. Kudrin, I. A. Laveretsky, M. P. Muravyov, I. A. Pelevin and N. Yu Silivanovich. The composition of this work is influenced by the famous fresco by Leonardo da Vinci. "The Last Supper" was made using the method of optical color mixing.

To convey all the richness of the colors of painting, the mosaicists used smalt with more than 12,000 shades of color. The mosaics of St. Isaac's Cathedral are distinguished by the perfection of their technical performance. In 1862, at the World Exhibition in London, they received the highest praise. Experts noted that in Russia the production of smalt "is brought to such perfection as nowhere else in Europe."

The stained-glass window "The Resurrected Christ" in the altar window of St. Isaac's Cathedral was made under the direction of the Bavarian architect Leo von Klenze in the style of the Italian Renaissance, its area is 28.5 square meters. m. This is one of the largest stained-glass windows in Europe.

The museum conducts excursions in Russian and foreign languages, conducts educational work with schoolchildren, and holds art master classes for children “Children draw in the temple”. Special programs have been developed and an infrastructure equipped with the latest technology has been created for visitors with disabilities, includingvisits to the observation deck with a guided tour at a height of 37 meters by visitors in a wheelchair. Today, under the arches of St. Isaac's Cathedral, concerts of classical and sacred music performed by the Chamber Choir of the Smolny Cathedral are held.

Isaakievskaya sq., 1

First incarnations

By its appearance Saint Isaac's Cathedral I am obliged to Peter I. Peter was born on May 30, the day of Isaac of Dalmatia, a Byzantine monk who was once canonized. It was decided to build a temple in honor of this saint at the Admiralty. For the new church, it was decided to re-equip the former Admiralty drawing room. In the summer of 1707, a small wooden building with ten mica windows appeared to the south of the shipyard. It was here that on February 19, 1712, Peter I married his wife Catherine.

By 1717, there was not a single stone church on Admiralty Island. First of all, they decided to make St. Isaac's Church such: " In the last 717th year of August on the 8th day ... the Yaroslavl district was ordered to the peasant Yakov Neupokoev at the Admiralty to build a stone church according to the outline of the architect Maternovius"[Quoted from: 1, p. 169]. At the same time, it was decided to build a new temple closer to the banks of the Neva, approximately where the famous "Bronze Horseman" now stands. At first, construction was carried out quickly. Mattarnovi) N. F. Gerbel in July 1721 had already requested ropes and ropes for lifting rafters on erected walls.

Peter I wanted to see St. Isaac's Church similar to St. Peter's Church in Riga. For him, they made a drawing of the spire, which was sent to St. Petersburg. The architect Trezzini and engineer Herman van Boles, who had proven themselves at work with the spire of the Peter and Paul Cathedral, were chosen to install this complex engineering structure. In November 1722 Domenico Trezzini examined and described the church:

"[The building was built] with a length of twenty yards and a half and a half a quarter of an inch, a width of ten yards, a height from the foundation of gymz five yards and five quarters of an arshin and three vershoks, walls with a thickness between windows of one and a half arshins and five vershoks with extended shoulder blades Two arshins and three vershoks.Where the dome is fourteen sazhens wide and one arshin... The dome above the middle is made with an octagonal round width of four sazhens and three feet, the height from the foundation is thirteen sazhens two arshins and two vershoks and a half, the width is five sazhens one arshin one and a half vershoks ... The vaults over the church and the altar and over the pillars of the arch are reduced in thickness in the castle to one brick. Lime is not smeared and not henbane, which should be smeared and whitewashed" [Cit. according to: 1, p. 169, 170].

In 1723, Peter I signed a decree that the sailors of the Baltic Fleet should take the oath only in this temple.

On September 11, 1724, the director of the Chancellery from the buildings, U. A. Senyavin, announced that serious damage had been found in the vaults of St. Isaac's Church. A week later, the architects Trezzini, van Zwieten, B. Rastrelli and the student of architecture M. G. Zemtsov submitted a report to the Chancellery on how to eliminate the shortcomings. On June 7, 1725, the Office of the Buildings determined:

"In the St. Isaac's Church, the vault of which was damaged, the architect Gaitan Chiaveri should be dismantled ... And the vault should not be made with a wooden or stone lung, reporting about it to Her Majesty the Empress ... the decree will be issued in the future. And the architect Trezin does not know that structure for he is the architect Trezin burdened with many other things" [op. according to: 1, p. 234].

To decide on the type of new vault being built and how to strengthen the walls, a commission was assembled from architects Trezzini, Chiaveri, Zemtsov, "architectural gezels" Timofey Usov and Peter Eropkin. The commission decided to strengthen the walls of the church with iron ties and build external buttresses.

In May 1726, Catherine I ordered to make an angel with a cross for St. Isaac's Church. In May of the following year, she changed her mind about the material for the vault. Instead of stone, it was decided to use wood. Two months later, the empress ordered that a dome and a wooden spire be built next summer. For this, the architects Trezzini and Chiaveri were commissioned to draw up the corresponding drawings. The latter reported to the Chancellery from the buildings that the damage to the stone walls of the bell tower had not yet been repaired, after which a commission of architects Trezzini, Zemtsov, Usov and Eropkin inspected the bell tower and issued their decision to fix it.

The consecration of St. Isaac's Church took place on May 30, 1727. Immediately after that, the first wooden church was dismantled. In 1728-1729, 20 round stone pillars on pedestals were installed around the bell tower to strengthen the walls and vaults, thus arranging a covered gallery. By September 1729, a wooden dome with a lantern was installed on the bell tower. Then the temple was painted white.

On April 21, 1735, the spire caught fire from lightning. As a result, the entire temple burned down. Its restoration was entrusted to the architect Pietro Antonio Trezzini, who found a way to restore the building without dismantling the rickety bell tower. According to Trezzini's instructions, the vaults and the dome were re-folded, and the interior and exterior decoration was also updated. The restoration of St. Isaac's Church continued until 1746.

It was not possible to solve the problems of the second St. Isaac's Church. It was built too close to the Neva - 21 meters from the shore. In addition, the foundation of the building was too weak. In 1758, the architects established:

"under that church, the foundation was made weak and narrow, and even more so without piles, and although at some corners and under the middle four pillars the piles are beaten, but very rarely, which is why the walls and pillars sit down, while the extra walls are made thin and bursting from the vaults made apart, which is why both the walls and the inner pillars staggered apart by one inch ... Although buttresses were first made from the sides for reinforcement, but even from that there was little help, and everything sagged from the walls and the lintels cracked ... although the bell tower supported by buttresses, only due to the weakness of the foundation of the saditsa down and from the church it has a separation in the walls" [Cit. according to: 1, p. 235].

In 1768, Catherine II ordered the construction of another St. Isaac's Cathedral to begin, now designed by Antonio Rinaldi. The cathedral began to be built in a new place, further from the coast, where the modern building is located. Since then, it has been dividing St. Isaac's and Senate Squares. J. Shtelin described the bookmark of the temple:

“In July 1768, Her Majesty Empress Catherine II, in the presence of the entire Court, foreign ministers and a huge crowd of people, solemnly laid the foundation stone for the Church of St. an altar was built, various coins minted during the reign of Her Majesty were placed, as well as a special medal issued on this occasion.The drawing of this church was executed by the state architect Rinaldi, and the construction according to the model made for this was entrusted to the Senate architect Vista under the main supervision of Mr. General - Lieutenant Count Bruce. It should become the largest and most magnificent church, which has never been in the Russian state" [Cit. according to: 1, p. 451].

The new building of St. Isaac's Cathedral was conceived as quite bright, faced with various varieties of Russian marble. However, by 1796, by the death of Catherine II, it was only half built.

Immediately after accession to the throne, Paul I ordered that all the remaining marble be transferred to the construction of the Mikhailovsky Castle, and St. Isaac's Cathedral was quickly completed in brick. The rush was associated with the approaching 100th anniversary of St. Petersburg, a large-scale construction in the center of which would not decorate the holiday. As a result, it was necessary to reduce the height of the bell tower, lower the main dome, and abandon the construction of side domes.

When Antonio Rinaldi left Russia, the walls of the building were covered with marble only up to the cornices. Finished by Vincenzo Brenna. The new St. Isaac's Cathedral was completed and consecrated by 1802.

The following epigram was born about this building among the people:

"Behold the monument of two kingdoms,
Both of them are decent,
On the marble floor
A brick top has been erected."

The quality of construction left much to be desired. During one of the services, damp plaster fell from the ceiling. When they began to understand the reasons for this, they realized that the building was subject to serious alteration. Built hastily according to a truncated project, the temple did not correspond to the status of the main Orthodox church, did not decorate the center of the capital of the Russian Empire.

Construction

In 1809, Alexander I announced a competition for the construction of a new St. Isaac's Cathedral. His personal requirement was the use of the altar part of the old temple in the new building. The first one was unsuccessful. Despite the fact that A. N. Voronikhin, A. D. Zakharov, C. Cameron, D. Quarenghi, L. Ruska, V. P. Stasov, J. Thomas de Thomon participated in it, their projects were not accepted by the emperor . All of them proposed to build a new cathedral anew, without using the already built structure.

The creation of the fourth building of St. Isaac's Cathedral was delayed by the Patriotic War of 1812. In 1816, Alexander I again ordered to start designing the temple. But the second competition did not reveal an architect worthy of this work. Then the emperor instructed the engineer August Betancourt, chairman of the Committee for Buildings, to find the right master. Such was the French architect Auguste Montferrand. This decision surprised many, since Montferrand was not well known then. The architect presented to the emperor 24 projects of the cathedral at once in different styles: from Gothic to Chinese. The emperor chose a five-domed temple in the classical style. Probably, the decision of the emperor was influenced by the fact that Montferrand proposed to use part of the structures of the Rinaldi Cathedral.

The choice of the classical appearance of St. Isaac's Cathedral is justified primarily by the context in which it was built. The architecture of St. Petersburg is focused primarily on Europe, so the main cathedral located in it should also be in the European style, but not, for example, in the Byzantine one. Because of this, it was immediately clear that the temple would not fully comply with the Orthodox canons of church building.

As soon as the Montferrand project began to be implemented, errors were immediately found in it. So, the architect expected to keep the old pylons. But this turned out to be impossible, since new and old pylons would have given a different draft. The Academy of Arts set up a special commission to correct the project. The architect had to redo his work, taking into account all the comments. Montferrand had to abandon the preservation of the old pylons, leaving only the altar eastern part of the Rinaldi Cathedral.

The process of building St. Isaac's Cathedral turned out to be divided into several stages. In 1818-1827, the old church was dismantled and the foundation of the new one was laid.

Taking into account the local features of the soil, 10,762 piles were driven into the base of the foundation. It took five years. Now this method of soil compaction is quite common, but at that time it made a huge impression on the inhabitants of the city. Then the following anecdote went around the city. As if when another pile was driven into the ground, it went underground without a trace. Following the first, they began to drive in another, but she also disappeared into the swampy soil. They installed the third, fourth ... Until a letter from New York arrived in St. Petersburg to the builders: "You ruined the pavement for us." - "And here we are?" - answered from St. Petersburg. - "But at the end of a log sticking out of the ground, the stamp of the St. Petersburg timber exchange "Gromov and K" came an answer from America.

At the second stage, from 1828 to 1830, columns of four large porticos were installed.

Initially, Montferrand planned to equip the temple only with northern and southern porticos. On the other two sides, in his opinion, they were out of place, as they rested against the walls of neighboring buildings, which made it difficult to see them in their entirety. But Nicholas I insisted on the construction of all four porticos, citing the need to give the temple a more solemn look. The fact that they would not be functional did not matter to the emperor.

Granite for the columns of St. Isaac's Cathedral was mined in quarries on the coast of the Gulf of Finland, near Vyborg. These works were supervised by the stonemason Samson Sukhanov and Arkhip Shikhin. Sukhanov invented an original method for extracting huge solid pieces of stone. Workers drilled holes in the granite, inserted wedges into them and beat them until a crack appeared in the stone. Iron levers with rings were placed in the crack, ropes were threaded through the rings. 40 people pulled the ropes and gradually broke out the granite blocks.

Nikolai Bestuzhev wrote about the transportation of these granite monoliths:

"They got down to business with their usual mechanics: they tied the ship more firmly to the shore - they put wagons, logs, boards, wrapped the ropes, crossed themselves - shouted a loud cheer! - and the proud colossi obediently rolled from the ship to the shore, and rolling past Peter, who, seemed to bless his sons with his hand, lay down humbly at the foot of St. Isaac's Church.

Delivery of building material from the banks of the Neva to the construction site was carried out on rails purchased abroad. Moreover, this was done long before the appearance of the first railway in Russia. This greatly facilitated the work, since timber, sand, stone blanks and monoliths were delivered to St. Petersburg by water.

The installation of 48 columns of porticoes was carried out before the erection of the walls of St. Isaac's Cathedral. The first column (the farthest column on the right in the first row of the north portico) was installed on March 20, 1828, and the last on August 11, 1830. The installation of the first column was an important event in the life of St. Petersburg. The celebration was attended by foreign guests, the royal couple and a large crowd of curious townspeople. In just 45 minutes, a 17-meter column weighing 114 tons was installed in front of their eyes. A lead box was placed under its base, in which a platinum medal with the image of Alexander I was placed.

From 1830 to 1836, walls and domed pylons were erected. In 1837-1841, they built vaults, a dome drum and four bell towers. The work of installing 24 columns around the central dome was also very ambitious. Each of them weighs 64 tons. For the first time in construction practice, columns of this weight and size rose to a height of more than 40 meters.

At the suggestion of Auguste Montferrand, the main dome of the cathedral was created not from brick, but from metal, which significantly reduced its weight. When designing it, the architect used the dome of St. Paul's Cathedral in London as a prototype. It consists of three nested parts. The inner vault rests on the colonnade. It is sheathed with boards, upholstered with tarred felt and plastered. Its lower surface, which the visitor of the cathedral sees, was painted by the artist K. P. Bryullov. On the inner vault there is a second supporting lantern of the cathedral. It is painted in a blue background with bronze rays and stars, which creates a picture of a starry sky. The third vault is external, covered with gilded copper sheets. It took more than 100 kilograms of pure gold to gild the dome of St. Isaac's Cathedral.

From 1841 to 1858 the interiors were designed. When compiling their projects, Montferrand traveled to Italy and France in order to get acquainted with the best examples. The interior project was approved by Nicholas I in January 1843.

St. Isaac's Cathedral was built for an unusually long time. In this regard, there were rumors in St. Petersburg about a deliberate delay in construction. "They say that a visiting clairvoyant predicted Montferrand's death immediately after construction was completed." - "That's what he's been building for so long."

These rumors were unexpectedly continued in real life. The architect actually died shortly after the construction of St. Isaac's Cathedral was completed. In this regard, various versions of what happened appeared in St. Petersburg folklore. Many of them refer to the hostile attitude of Emperor Alexander II towards the architect. Allegedly, during the consecration of St. Isaac's Cathedral, someone drew the attention of Alexander II to one of the sculptural decorations of the building. Montferrand left a peculiar portrait. In the sculptural decoration of the western pediment there is a group of saints, bowing their heads to welcome the appearance of Isaac of Dalmatia. Among them, the sculptor placed the figure of Montferrand with a model of the cathedral in his hands, which, unlike the rest, holds his head straight. Paying attention to this fact, the emperor did not shake hands with the architect as he passed by, did not say a word of gratitude for the work. Montferrand was seriously upset, went home before the end of the consecration ceremony, fell ill and died a month later.

Rumors aside, the delay in construction can be explained by design errors made by Montferrand. They were discovered already during construction, it took time to eliminate them.

A record amount of money was spent on the construction of the temple. For example, about 2,000,000 rubles were spent on the construction of the large-scale Trinity-Izmailovsky Cathedral, while 2,500,000 rubles were spent on the foundation of St. Isaac's Cathedral. Financing was carried out from the treasury, despite the budget deficit. Church of St. Isaac of Dalmatia became the most expensive in Europe. It cost the treasury 23,256,852 rubles and 80 kopecks, excluding the cost of church utensils. The savings in his equipment was very small, but still there. So, at the direction of Nicholas I, the pulpit here was made not from expensive Carrara marble, but from oak. The economy also determines the absence of the richest fence around the temple, conceived by Montferrand. She, like everything connected with the main Orthodox Church, was conceived in a very pompous way:

“It was proposed to arrange a great balustrade, decorated with twenty pedestals. On eight of these pedestals, especially prominent ones, put the figures of men who enlightened Russia with their faith, and the other twelve should be occupied by grandiose candelabra for gas lighting. Moreover, it was proposed against the three main entrances to put high columns on the porticoes of the cathedral..." [op. according to: 3, p. 138]

Description

The height of St. Isaac's Cathedral is 101.5 meters. The building weighs 300,000 tons. The cathedral is the fourth largest in the world. It is second only to St. Peter's in Rome, St. Paul's in London and St. Mary's in Florence. With an area of ​​4,000 square meters, it can accommodate up to 12,000 people. At the same time, Montferrand himself calculated that the building's capacity was 7,000. He had to take into account the size of the puffy skirts of the ladies, as well as the need to "reserve" at least one square meter for each believer.

Being the main temple, St. Isaac's Cathedral is placed on a stereobat - an elevation, which symbolizes the approach to God. The steps of the stereobat are made large, more than a human step, which sets the visitor to a slow, thoughtful entrance to the cathedral.

The eastern and western porticos of St. Isaac's Cathedral each have eight columns, while the northern and southern porticos each have sixteen. This is due to the fact that the latter decorate the Senate and St. Isaac's Squares, which means they should be more solemn. At the same time, according to Orthodox canons, the main entrance should have been from the west - opposite the altar. This is not found in the architecture of the building.

The facade of the building is faced with marble, the thickness of the blocks of which is 40-50 centimeters.

Ivan Petrovich Vitali became the chief sculptor of St. Isaac's Cathedral. He was attracted to work by Montferrand, who thus found a replacement for the French sculptor Lemaire. IP Vitali created the unique doors of the temple. Each of the wings weighs more than 20 tons. For their model, Montferrand chose the "Golden Doors" of the baptistery by the sculptor Ghiberti. For St. Isaac's Cathedral, their exact life-size copy was made, and then Vitali cast them in bronze. The images of saints on the doors are portraits. For the prototype, the sculptor took the images of workers, whom Vitali sketched while walking through the construction site.

The sculptural decoration of the exterior of St. Isaac's Cathedral, at the request of Nicholas I, was supplemented by eight figures of angels above the pilasters and four groups of angels with lamps in the corners of the building. The latter were used on the days of church holidays, when gas was lit in the lamps.

The bronze bas-reliefs of the pediments were also created by Vitali. The bas-relief of the western pediment is called "Saint Isaac and Emperor Theodosius". On the advice of the artist Karl Bryullov, the sculptor gave the faces of the heroes of the plot the features of his contemporaries. Nicholas I himself is shown in the person of Theodosius, the wife of the Byzantine emperor is similar to the wife of the sovereign Alexander Feodorovna, the courtiers Saturninus and Victoria - to the minister of the court Prince Volkonsky and the president of the Academy of Arts Olenin, St. Isaac of Dalmatia - to Metropolitan Seraphim, a Byzantine architect (as already mentioned above) - on Montferrand.

The inner walls of the building are lined with marble as well as the outer ones. But above the attic, starting at a height of 43 meters, the planes are treated with stucco, that is, artificial marble, cheaper than natural stone. At this height, the viewer does not see the substitution.

Isaac of Dalmatia is dedicated to the central main chapel of the temple. The northern one - to the holy noble prince Alexander Nevsky, the southern one - to the holy Great Martyr Catherine.

The cathedral is illuminated by seven gilded bronze chandeliers with 980 candles. In addition to them, there were candelabra, but all this was still not enough for full lighting. Before the appearance of electricity in the temple (in 1903), it was so dark that the paintings above the attic were not visible. The headman of the cathedral E. Bogdanovich wrote:

"Approaching the cathedral, first of all, one is struck by its vastness and a small number of windows.<...>All these windows in the dome give little light to the interior of the temple, where the pilgrims stand, so that the dome, which occupies a relatively small space, is much more illuminated than the temple itself, which is why the latter, with its riches and works of art, loses a lot ... Inside the temple is struck by its gloom." [Quoted from: 3, p. 215, 216]

The problem of insufficient lighting was proposed to be eliminated, at least partially, by punching a window in the vault above the altar. But for the sake of preserving the painting of the vault, this was abandoned.

At the direction of Nicholas I, the picturesque decoration of St. Isaac's Cathedral was gradually transferred to mosaics. Orders for the interior decoration of the temple were distributed not by competitions, but by the will of the emperor. Thus, the artist T. Neff was involved in the work, who had previously painted only a portrait of Grand Duchess Maria Nikolaevna.

Above the iconostasis, the artist F. Bruni depicted the painting "The Last Judgment", which is usually located on the western wall of the temple. It was not possible to do this here, since the corresponding place on the western side is divided into three small parts by an attic and a cornice. Because of this, it was necessary to move away from the tradition of the Orthodox Church and place the fourth, sixth and seventh days of the creation of the Universe by God, and the scene of the Last Judgment in the east above the iconostasis.

Nicholas I entrusted Karl Bryullov with the creation of the painting of the plafond of St. Isaac's Cathedral. This is the largest pictorial work in the temple with an area of ​​816 square meters. In the process of work, the painter created hundreds of sketches and sketches of individual characters and details. The ceiling painting is called "The Virgin in Glory". According to the plan of Bryullov, the saints were immortalized here - the patrons of the emperors of Russia: John the Theologian, Saint Nicholas, John the Baptist, Saints Peter and Paul, Catherine, Elizabeth, Anna, Alexander Nevsky and Isaac of Dalmatia, Emperor Constantine and Saint Alexei. The artist gave the features of Peter I to the face of Alexander Nevsky.

Bryullov worked on the plafond of St. Isaac's Cathedral from mid-1845 to early 1847. Due to difficult conditions, he fell ill, he had to be replaced by P. Basin, who completed "The Virgin in Glory" by the end of 1848. In 1849-1852 Basin painted the dome drum, sail vaults and attic according to Bryullov's sketches.

In memory of the fact that the temple was built during the reign of Nicholas I, the artist Riss created an image of St. Fevronia, the personal patroness of the emperor, in the southwestern ceiling of the bell tower.

The iconostasis of St. Isaac's Cathedral was created in the 1840s in the classical style in the form of a triumphal arch. Its imperial style is emphasized by 10-meter malachite columns. It was they, and not the Royal Doors, as is customary in Orthodox churches, that became the compositional center of the iconostasis. Another violation of the rules was the placement of the northern and southern doors of the main altar not in the iconostasis itself, but in the walls separating the altar from the aisles.

Of the canonical icons, only four are placed in the iconostasis: Jesus Christ, Isaac of Dalmatia, the Mother of God with the Child and the Last Supper. The rest of the icons are dedicated to the saints, personal patrons of the emperors, during whose reign all four buildings of St. Isaac's Cathedral were built: St. Paul, Great Martyr Catherine, Alexander Nevsky, Nicholas the Wonderworker and Peter. All these icons are mosaics based on the picturesque originals by T. Neff. The icons depicting the events of the Gospel are not located in the second tier of the iconostasis, but are scattered throughout the cathedral, being placed in the niches of the pylons. In the iconostasis, their places are occupied by the patron saints of members of the royal family: Prince Vladimir and Princess Olga, Mary Magdalene and Empress Alexandra, Nikolai Novgorodsky, Archangel Michael, the righteous Anna and Elizabeth, Equal-to-the-Apostles Tsar Constantine and Empress Elena. These icons are also created using the mosaic technique, made according to the sketches of F. P. Bryullov (brother of Karl Bryullov). Another violation of tradition was the image in the iconostasis of six holy wives. All waste from the traditional execution of the iconostasis is due to the need to reflect in it the idea of ​​statehood, to show the unity of the royal and heavenly authorities.

The sculptural group "Christ with Glory" crowning the Royal Doors was made by P. Klodt and T. Neff.

300 kilograms of gold were spent on gilding the interior of St. Isaac's Cathedral.

The altar window of the temple is decorated with a stained-glass window, which is an exceptional event for the Orthodox tradition. The stained-glass window of St. Isaac's Cathedral was made by German masters in Germany and was delivered to St. Petersburg in parts. It depicts Jesus Christ in full growth, its area is 28 square meters.

Church utensils were created for St. Isaac's Cathedral from official gold for 17,500 rubles by court suppliers Nichols and Plinke. They also put 26 items of state-owned silver into the temple. The silversmiths Sezikov and Verkhovtsev put another 89 items from state-owned precious metal into the temple. In gratitude for receiving this order, the suppliers made 57 items from their own silver.

Story

The construction of St. Isaac's Cathedral ended with the consecration of the temple on May 30, 1858. For the construction of the temple, Auguste Montferrand received the rank of real state councilor, a lump sum of 40,000 rubles and a pension of 5,000 rubles. The consecration ceremony of the temple began at 9 am, the parade of troops that completed it ended at 4 pm. All Petersburg newspapers described this event in enthusiastic tones, recalling a clear day and a huge gathering of people. Contemporaries also noted the features of the event typical for Russia:

"A nasty story tangled with this ceremony. During the coronation, Red Square in the Kremlin was covered with red cloth, which went to several thousand arshins ... Today, again, red cloth was needed to cover the road from the Winter Palace to the cathedral, and the sovereign remembered that, the coronation, and ordered to use it. We wrote to Moscow. From there they answered that the cloth was very bad, that the moth had eaten it. The sovereign ordered that it be sent as it is. Then it turned out that it did not exist at all, and that it had never been bought, but was rented. Baron Bode, they say, was dismissed, and several other people lost their places with him. There is a lot of talk about this story. They say that the cloth was actually bought, that is, the money was put on the account, and the cloth was then sold and the money was divided between themselves." [Cit. according to: 3, p. 195]

The consecration ceremony of St. Isaac's Cathedral was attended by a huge crowd of Petersburgers and guests of the city. Spectator seats were arranged around the temple. In the amphitheater opposite the western portico, boxes cost 100, and an armchair 25 silver rubles. The windows of the houses closest to the church were rented for a huge amount of money in early May.

“From seven o’clock in the morning, the stands arranged on Petrovsky and St. Isaac’s Squares began to be covered with spectators. All the windows of the houses that stood in the way of the procession were full of multi-colored dresses of ladies. The very roofs were covered with people. one of the greatest squares in the world presented a wonderful sight: opposite us, the golden dome of the cathedral church rose to the sky; its porticos were covered with a diverse crowd in brilliant uniforms; the wide ribbon of the Neva and the flags of the ships fluttered in front of us, the motley masses of troops were moving, taking their places. The big bell hummed solemnly ...

Before the start of the train, the Sovereign Emperor, surrounded by his retinue, traveled around all the troops and greeted them cordially.

At the appointed hour, a train appeared in the distance. Soon after the Sovereign Emperor, a member of the August Family and Their retinue entered the cathedral, where, in Their presence, the rite of consecration of the temple was performed, a religious procession appeared in the distance, preceded by singers in multi-colored clothes. The clergy, in white glazing vestments, with banners, images and holy relics, carried at the head by a bishop, marched in two rows, in front of which they carried a lantern and a cross. As the procession passed by the regiments, the music played the hymn "How glorious is our Lord in Zion." This music, performed by the piano, made an amazing impression: not instruments were heard, but as if several choirs were singing in the distance. All together - and this touching music of the sacred hymn, and this quiet, solemn, brilliant procession, moving in the middle of the boundless square, established by the troops and framed by thousands of people - represented a spectacle that, of course, everyone who happened to see his.

Upon the arrival of the procession, the Sovereign Emperor, the Empress Empress, members of the August Family and the retinue left the cathedral. Their Majesties descended to the bottom step. There was singing. Then the passage again moved around the cathedral, accompanied by Their Imperial Majesties and Their Imperial Highnesses; having walked around the temple, the procession entered the temple." [Quoted from: 3, p. 197-199]

The ceremonial of the consecration of the temple has been preserved. It was published in N. Yu. Tolmacheva's book "St. Isaac's Cathedral" as an appendix to the main material.

Auguste Montferrand bequeathed to bury him in his main brainchild - St. Isaac's Cathedral. But Alexander II did not fulfill this desire. The coffin with the body of the architect was only carried around the temple, after which the widow took him to Paris.

After the opening, the temple was not in the spiritual department, but in the state. After the liquidation of the commission for its construction in 1864, the cathedral came under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Communications and Public Buildings. In 1871 the building was transferred to the Ministry of the Interior.

For the maintenance of St. Isaac's Cathedral, the treasury annually allocated huge amounts of money. A large choir sang in the church. To ensure the ringing of bells, a staff of 16 people was kept, divided into two shifts. The parable of the temple was the largest in St. Petersburg, its members received state salaries. In other churches, with rare exceptions, parish lived on money from parish incomes.

In St. Isaac's Cathedral, members of the royal family were baptized; it became the center of city-wide holidays. However, scaffolding was not removed from it for a long time. It was said that the building was built in bad faith and required constant repairs. In addition, a legend was born that the house of the Romanovs would fall as soon as the scaffolding was removed from Isaac. They were finally removed only by 1916. Quite shortly before the abdication of Nicholas II from the throne.

St. Isaac's Cathedral is undoubtedly one of the symbols of St. Petersburg. Its high drum with a dome can be seen from the Gulf of Finland, it has become a prominent part of the city's portrait. However, due to the disproportionality of the drum and the bells placed next to it, unofficial names arose. One of them is "Inkwell".

After the adoption in 1920 of the decree on the seizure of church valuables, 50 kilograms of gold and more than two tons of silver, many precious stones, all icons and other valuables were taken out of St. Isaac's Cathedral.

For some time the temple remained active. In 1925, the People's Commissariat of Education noted that due to its poor condition, it should have been closed. The administration of the cathedral could not provide proper care for the building due to the cessation of its funding from the state and a significant reduction in donations. Therefore, in 1928 St. Isaac's Cathedral was transferred to Glavnauka. Then the bells were removed from St. Isaac's Cathedral and sent for remelting. At the same time, an elevator shaft was made in the southwestern bell tower.

St. Isaac's Cathedral, it was decided to use as a museum. From 1928 to 1931, it underwent cosmetic repairs and prepared an exhibition on the history of the design and construction of the building. By March 1931, this exhibition was supplemented with anti-religious materials, after which the St. Isaac's Cathedral Museum was opened.

At the opening of the museum, all three large front doors of the cathedral were opened for the last time. Later, this was abandoned, since with open doors in such a huge building it is impossible to maintain the temperature (16-18 ° C) and humidity required to preserve its picturesque decoration.

At the opening ceremony of the museum, the building managed to accommodate 10,000 people, and in just the first three months of its operation, more than 100,000 people visited it.

The tour of the museum consisted of three sections: 1) the history of the cathedral, revealing the hard work of fortress builders; 2) anti-religious work of the museum; 3) the natural science section, one of the exhibits of which was the Foucault pendulum. This pendulum was attached to the dome and descended to the center of the building. Its height was 91 meters.

In Soviet times, St. Isaac's Cathedral continued to be the object of myth-making. One of the pre-war legends says that America was ready to buy the temple. It was supposed to be transported to the United States in parts on ships, to be reassembled there. For this, the Americans allegedly offered to pave all the streets of Leningrad, which at that time were covered with cobblestones.

The second legend tells how during the blockade St. Isaac's Cathedral was unharmed, not affected by the bombing. When the threat of occupation of Leningrad by the Nazis turned out to be real, the problem of evacuating valuables from the city arose. They did not have time to take everything out, they began to look for a place for a reliable storage of sculpture, furniture, books, porcelain ... One elderly officer proposed to arrange a storage in the cellars of St. Isaac's Cathedral. When shelling the city, the Germans had to use the dome of the cathedral as a guide and not shoot at it. And so it happened. All 900 days of the siege, the museum treasures lay in this vault and were never subjected to direct shelling.

But the shells still exploded nearby. The traces of fragments that damaged the columns of the western portico of St. Isaac's Cathedral remind of the Great Patriotic War. At the beginning of the blockade, the dome and belfries of the building were covered with khaki paint, the windows were bricked up, and the chandeliers (weighing 2.9 tons each) were removed.

If the facades of St. Isaac's Cathedral during the war suffered little damage, then its interiors suffered great damage. The temple was not heated during the blockade. Because of this, he froze so much that frost appeared on the inner columns. In the spring, during the thaw, streams flowed along the walls. Bruni's painting "Adam and Eve in Paradise" suffered the most. Its paint layer was completely washed away, while not a single sketch of the painting survived. The restorers had to create it anew, adhering to the artist's handwriting.

In 1963 St. Isaac's Cathedral was opened after restoration. Before that, the cult funds were transferred to the anti-religious museum (to the Kazan Cathedral). Since then, the museum operating here has a purely historical focus.

The bust of Auguste Montferrand is kept in St. Isaac's Cathedral, made of 43 types of minerals and stones - all that was used in the construction of the temple.

By 1981, the Foucault pendulum was obsolete, since no one was required to prove the rotation of the Earth around its axis. It was not transferred to another organization due to its large size. There was no other building of the required height for the pendulum. He was placed between the doors. The thickness of the walls of St. Isaac's Cathedral, together with the cladding, is five meters, so the gap between the doors allows you to store some objects between them.

After the removal of the pendulum, the Museum of St. Isaac's Cathedral became not just historical, but historical and artistic. He remains so to this day. But services are again held in the temple. The colonnade of St. Isaac's Cathedral is one of the most attractive places for tourists. Here, from a height of 43 meters, you can see the panorama of St. Petersburg. 562 steps of a spiral staircase lead to this observation deck.

It is necessary to study, even the one that they give us officially, only in the process of studying we must remember that the fake version of the development of the world that is given to us is, to put it mildly, a complete lie. Thanks to the Internet, in our time, some chronicles and books become available that accidentally survived the total destruction of historical documents in the 18-19 centuries, and a serious attitude to the facts of bygone days makes it possible to understand that not everything in our history was the way films and present official textbooks. They are not just trying to hide something very important from us - they blatantly lie to us all our lives. Everything is distorted! A vivid example is the history of St. Petersburg, and for now let's consider only the history of the famous St. Isaac's Cathedral.

The fact that the facts are deliberately distorted, you understand after graduation, and then only annoyance remains: ... we all learned a little something and somehow ... Although I personally studied normally, even at school or at the institute. History, completely distorted and turned upside down, was presented in schools and universities under the flag of Marxism-Leninism, patriotism and love for the motherland. It used to be - now they don't even teach you to love your homeland - it's forbidden, it's supposed to love the West and the American way of life.

Those who are profitable to deceive, go by proven, proven methods. The real facts, which cannot be hidden, no matter how hard you try, first succumb to the attacks of doubts, distortions and mass attacks of eminent paid "luminaries" of science, leading away from the truth, and then envelop them with a veil of informational deception through which random single voices of opponents only occasionally break through. Then, after a few years, they present the fake story they invented as an indisputable truth, widely advertising the next newly invented version in the media. You see, after several years of intensified processing of public opinion by means of mass infozombing, instead of doubt, indifference to all versions is born. And after one generation of mass processing, the people no longer remember how it really was. Distorted facts form a distorted idea of ​​the country and the place of a person in the historical process. At the same time, distorted psychological reactions of people to large historical periods or major historical events arise.

In most cases, the evidence is literally in front of our eyes, but people who are accustomed to trust official sources more often pass by the real facts, out of habit not noticing them. Total deception has taught citizens not to see the reality behind the fictional images inspired from childhood. Therefore, the people in their mass do not distinguish the presented official information from real life. This is beneficial to people who control the entire people, lifestyle, public consciousness, to keep everyone in slavery, providing the illusion of freedom.

Petersburg was taken for research, because it is a fairly young city (so the official version says), and its history is completely written in chronicles and textbooks. History close in centuries is easier to study. So why are there gross distortions of reality here as well? Who prevented the era of Peter I, "interesting and progressive." To read the imposed story, but rejoice. The “short” history of the great city makes it possible to catch false chroniclers in a lie, to present to contemporaries the discrepancy between descriptions of historical moments and the real state of things.

Alexander Column

For some reason, the megaliths described in encyclopedias are everywhere, but not in Russia. Nevertheless, there is a megalithic object in St. Petersburg itself, this is confirmed by historians, listing common signs of megaliths all over the world.
The blank for the Alexander Column would have an approximate weight of about 1000 tons, a complete analogue of the abandoned block in Baalbek. The Column itself weighs over 600 tons. This gives good reason to rank the historical buildings of St. Petersburg - St. Isaac's Cathedral and the Alexander Column - as megaliths of the past. They look quite plausible, if you correctly interpret them, selecting suitable facts, then you can make a description that does not detract from the greatness of these objects.

Saint Isaac's Cathedral

In the history of St. Petersburg, all the facts can be verified, as there are official testimonies and documents. To confirm the truth of the appearance of St. Isaac's Cathedral, let's take the method of cross-combining dates and events. Enthusiasts have done a lot of research for this, their results are posted in various articles and Internet forums. However, they are diligently ignored by representatives of official science and the media. Yes, and let them ignore - they are paid, that is, corrupt. We ourselves need to figure it out.

St. Isaac's Cathedral - pages of falsified history

To begin with, we take the history of the construction of St. Isaac's Cathedral, described in Wikipedia. According to the official version, the cathedral, which today adorns St. Isaac's Square, is the fourth building. It turns out that it was built four times. And it all started with a small church.

First St. Isaac's Church. 1707

first St. Isaac's Church

The first church of St. Isaac of Dalmatia was built for the workers of the Admiralty shipyards by order of Peter I. The tsar chose the building of the drawing barn as the basis for the future church. St. Isaac's Cathedral began to be built in 1706. It was built with the money of the state treasury. The construction was supervised by Count F.M. Apraksin, the Dutch architect Herman van Boles, who had already lived in Russia since 1711, was invited to build the spire of the church.
The first temple was completely wooden, built according to the traditions of that time - a frame of round logs; their length was 18 meters, the width of the building was 9 meters, and the height was 4 meters. Outside, the walls were upholstered with boards up to 20 centimeters wide, in a horizontal direction. For a good descent of snow and rain, the roof was made at an angle of 45 degrees. The roof was also wooden, and according to the tradition of shipbuilding, it was covered with a black-brown wax-bitumen composition, which was used to tar the bottom of ships. The building was called St. Isaac's Church and consecrated in 1707.

Solemn meeting of the St. Petersburg militia on St. Isaac's Square on June 12, 1814. Engraving by I. Ivanov.

Less than two years later, Peter I issued an order to start restoration work in the church. What could happen to a tree treated according to the ship's rules in just two years? After all, wooden buildings stand for centuries, showing the majesty and power of wood. The decision to restore, it turns out, was made in order to improve the appearance of the church, and get rid of the constant dampness inside the temple.
History shows that St. Isaac's Cathedral, even in the form of a wooden church, was the main temple in the city. Here in 1712 Peter I and Ekaterina Alekseevna got married, since 1723 only here employees of the Admiralty and sailors of the Baltic Fleet could take the oath. Records of this were preserved in the marching journal of the temple. The body of the first temple was very dilapidated (?) and in 1717 the temple was laid in stone.

Fact Analysis

According to official data, St. Petersburg was founded in 1703. From this year, the age of the city is calculated. Let's talk about Peter's real age next time, there will be more than one article.
The church was founded in 1706, consecrated in 1707, in 1709 it already required repairs, in 1717 it was already dilapidated, although the wood was impregnated with ship's wax-bitumen composition, and in 1927 a new stone church was already built. In lies!

If you take the album of Augustus Montferrand, you can see in it a lithograph of the first church, which is depicted exactly opposite the entrance to the territory of the Admiralty. This means that the temple stood either in the courtyard of the Admiralty, or outside it, but opposite the main entrance. It is on the album, released in Paris, that the main interpretation of the history of all the buildings of St. Isaac's Cathedral is built.

Second St. Isaac's Church. 1717

In August 1717, a stone church was laid in the name of Isaac of Dalmatia. And where can we go without it - Peter the Great laid the first stone in the foundation of the new church with his own hands. The second St. Isaac's Church began to be built in the style of "Peter's Baroque", the construction was led by the prominent architect of the Petrine era Georg Johann Mattarnovi, who had been in the service of Peter I since 1714. In 1721, G.I. Mattarnovi died, the construction of the temple was headed by the city architect of that time, Nikolai Fedorovich Gerbel. However, in the track record of N.F. Gerbel there is no indication of his participation in the construction of the stone St. Isaac's Church. Three years later, he dies, the construction is completed by the stone master Y. Neupokoev.

With such twists and turns, the church was built in 1727. The plan of the foundation of the temple is an equal-ended Greek cross 60.5 meters long (28 fathoms), 32.4 meters wide (15 fathoms). The dome of the temple was based on four pillars, the outside was covered with simple iron. The height of the bell tower reached 27.4 meters (12 sazhens + 2 arshins), plus a spire 13 meters long (6 sazhens). All this splendor was crowned with gilded copper crosses. The vaults of the temple were wooden, the facades between the windows were decorated with pilasters.

second St. Isaac's Church

In appearance, the newly built temple was very similar to the Peter and Paul Cathedral. The similarity was strengthened by slender bell towers with chimes, which Peter I brought from Amsterdam for two churches. Ivan Petrovich Zarudny, the founder of the Petrine Baroque style, made a carved gilded iconostasis for St. Isaac's and Peter and Paul's Cathedrals, which only increased the similarity of the two churches.

The second St. Isaac's Cathedral was built close to the banks of the Neva. Now the Bronze Horseman is installed there. At that time, the place for the cathedral turned out to be clearly unsuccessful - the water eroded the coastline and destroyed the foundation. Strangely, the Neva did not interfere with the previous wooden building.

In the spring of 1735, lightning caused a fire, completing the destruction of the entire church.

Too many strange events in the destruction of the newly built building. It is also strange that in the album of A. Montferrand there is no image of the second building of the church. Her images are found only on lithographs of the northern capital until 1771. Yes, there is a model inside St. Isaac's Cathedral.

It is surprising that another temple stood on this site for many years, and the waters of the Neva did not interfere with it. According to official history, the same place was chosen for the installation of the monument to Peter I - again, water is not a hindrance. A stone - a pedestal for the Bronze Horseman was brought in 1770. The monument was built and erected in 1782. However, services in the church were conducted until February 1800, as evidenced by the records of its rector, Archpriest Georgy Pokorsky. Solid inconsistencies.

Third St. Isaac's Cathedral. 1768

Lithograph by O. Montferrand. View of St. Isaac's Cathedral during the reign of Empress Catherine II. Lithograph by O. Montferrand

In 1762, Catherine II came to the throne. A year before, the Senate decided to recreate St. Isaac's Cathedral. A Russian architect, a representative of the Petrine Baroque style, Savva Ivanovich Chevakinsky, was appointed the head of construction. Catherine II approved the idea of ​​a new construction, closely associated with the name of Peter I. The start of work was delayed due to funding, and soon S.I. Chevakinsky resigns.
The head of construction was an Italian architect in the Russian service, Antonio Rinaldi. The decree on the start of work was issued in 1766, and construction began on the site chosen by S.I. Chevakinsky. The laying of the building in a solemn atmosphere was held in August 1768, in memory of such an important event a medal was even minted.

third St. Isaac's Cathedral

According to the project of A. Rinaldi, the cathedral was planned to be built with five complex domes and a high, slender bell tower. The walls were faced with marble. The exact layout of the third cathedral and its drawings, made by A. Rinaldi, are kept today in the expositions of the Museum of the Academy of Arts. A. Rinaldi did not complete the work, he managed to bring the building only to the eaves, when Catherine II died. Financing of the construction immediately stopped, and A. Rinaldi left.

Paul I came to the throne. It was necessary to do something with the unfinished construction in the city center, then the architect V. Brenn was called in to urgently complete the work. In a hurry, the architect was forced to significantly distort the project of A. Rinaldi, that is, not to take it into account at all. As a result, the size of the upper superstructure and the main dome decreased, and the planned four small domes were not erected. The building material was also changed, because the marble prepared for the decoration of St. Isaac's Cathedral was transferred for the construction of the main residence of Paul I. As a result, the cathedral turned out to be squat, absurd, as an inharmonious brick superstructure towered on a luxurious marble base.

Investigation notes

Here you can return to the word "recreate". What can it mean? Semantic meaning - recreates what is completely lost. It turns out that in 1761 the second building of the temple was no longer on the square?

As these constructions are described, only foreign architects worked on them. Why was the construction of the domestic Temple not entrusted to Russian architects?

In A. Montferrand's album, the third temple does not look like a construction site, but as an active building, around which people are walking. At the same time, the central entrance to the Admiralty is again visible on the lithograph, and the Admiralty building is surrounded by a lush garden. What is this? The fiction of the artist who carved the lithograph, or a special embellishment of reality? According to official history, the Admiralty building was surrounded by a deep moat, which was filled in in 1823, when the third temple was gone. The history of the services of St. Isaac's Cathedral indicates that services were conducted in it by Archpriest Alexei Malov until 1836.

The sharp discrepancy between dates and events makes you seriously think about where is fiction and where is the truth. Obviously contradictory facts are contained in the surviving descriptions of the construction and maintenance of St. Isaac's Cathedral, that is, in state documents. This is not just an innocent confusion, this is one of the many facts proving that the real state documentation of Russia was destroyed and falsified.

Catholic version

According to official historical facts, the first church of Isaac of Dalmatia was built on the banks of the Neva during the reign of Peter I, in 1710. A fire destroyed the church in 1717. The new church was built only in 1727, also on the banks of the Neva. The famous Admiralty Canal was dug in 1717, along which timber for ships was delivered from New Holland Island to the Admiralty. The Amsterdam cartographer and publisher Reiner Ottens drew up a plan of the area on which this part of St. Petersburg appears differently. According to his plan, the second St. Isaac's Church is drawn with signs of the Catholic Church. Its shape is like a Basilica or a ship. On the plan of R. Ottens, the third church, built according to the project of Rinaldi, is similar to the completion of the second church, to which only domes have been added on the plan.

Thanks a lot! Came with children for the weekend and both spent with your guides. Unusually beautiful places and well presented information. The first day we were in Peterhof, the second we visited Pavlovsk and Pushkin - fountains, parks, palaces fascinate and amaze with their beauty and majesty. Many thanks to the guides Tatyana Nikolaevna and Viktor Nikolaevich, as well as to the drivers. Buses are clean and comfortable. Next tours only with you)))...

I bought a city tour for my parents. I myself have been living in St. Petersburg for a long time, and my parents came to visit - I wanted to show them the city. Firstly, I want to thank the manager Ekaterina, who helped me choose the most interesting and complete excursion, including a trip on a boat. Parents were delighted - they still call and admire Peter. Yes, and I myself learned a lot about those places that you pass by every day and do not even think about their significance and history. Also many thanks to the guide Irina Anatolyevna - a very informed guide and a friendly person. Thank you very much for your work!

Museum complex "St. Isaac's Cathedral"

The museum is a certain ensemble of the temple and cathedrals. We are talking about the Church of the Resurrection of Christ, Smolny and Sampson Cathedrals. All these temples are not only the pride and heritage of the nation, but also functioning cathedrals, where daily services are held for the Orthodox.

St. Isaac's Cathedral is one of the most monumental and majestic sights of St. Petersburg. This Orthodox church is one of the tallest domed buildings in the world. The height of St. Isaac's Cathedral is 101.5 m, the diameter of the dome is 21.8 m. The area of ​​the temple is about 4,000 sq. m. St. Isaac's Cathedral can accommodate 12 thousand people. The colonnade of St. Isaac's Cathedral is the best observation platform in St. Petersburg. You can climb to the top of the colonnade by an internal staircase, overcoming 211 steps, from where a magnificent panorama of the central part of the city opens.

The official name is the Cathedral of St. Isaac of Dalmatia. The history of the museum-monument begins in 1928, when the exhibition "History of the construction of St. Isaac's Cathedral" was opened in St. Isaac's Cathedral.

During the Great Patriotic War and the siege of Leningrad, exhibits from museums of the city and suburban palaces of Petrodvorets, Pavlovsk, Pushkin and Gatchina were transported to St. Isaac's Cathedral for preservation.

In January 1963, the museum-monument "St. Isaac's Cathedral" became a branch of the State Museum of the History of Leningrad.

One of the significant events in the life of the museum was the resumption of services in memorial churches: in 1990, for the first time after the closure of St. Isaac's Cathedral as a functioning church. His voice was returned to St. Isaac's Cathedral - specially cast bells took their place on the belfries.

Today, the St. Isaac's Cathedral State Museum-Monument is a universally recognized All-Russian center of culture, a multifunctional museum institution that creates a feeling of the special atmosphere of a modern museum for visitors. The museum creates new expositions, exhibitions and excursion projects, sacred music sounds under the vaults of temples, social and cultural events and scientific forums are held.

St. Isaac's Cathedral is included in the UNESCO World Cultural Heritage List.

Working mode:

Museum-monument "St. Isaac's Cathedral"– from 10:30 to 18:00.

Day off is Wednesday. Evening programs of the museum - from 18:00 to 22:30 (from May 1 to September 30, day off - Wednesday).

Colonnade of St. Isaac's Cathedral— from 10:30 to 18:00 (from May 1 to October 31 daily). From November 1 to April 30, a day off is the third Wednesday of the month.

Evening colonnade - from 18:00 to 22:30 (from May 1 to October 31). Colonnade during the "white nights" - from 22:30 to 4:30 (valid from June 1 to August 20, day off - Wednesday).