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      St. Isaac’s Cathedral

The Saint-Isaac’s Cathedral is one of the finest monuments of architecture of the XIX century. It was created to the design of A. Montferrand. The Saint-Isaac's is the former principal cathedral of the Russian Capital, the largest cathedral in the city with capacity up to 10 thousand people. It was the 4^th church of St. Isaac in St. Petersburg. St. Isaac was a Byzantium monk and as his day – May, 30 – was the birthday of Peter the Great it became the patron saint of the Russian tzar. The first St. Isaac’s church was constructed near the Admiralty in 1710 (it was situated on the place where now we can see a foutain). It was a wooden church (though it was painted as if it was made of bricks) constructed to the order of Peter the Great and it was here that in 1712 he got married to Katherine I. Several years later the church was rebuilt in stone. The construction was finished by 1727. In Catherine II to show her respect to Peter I ordered to construct a cathedral of St. Isaac. The new church was designed by Antonio Rinaldi and was to be built in stone and decorated with different kinds of marble. Unfortunately the construction works lasted for several years. Catherine II had died as well as the architect Rinaldi before the construction was finished and Paul I ordered to complete the works. That was why the cathedral was finished in bricks. It looked ugly – a strange combination of marble and bricks. It was consecrated in 1802. Alexander I ordered to construct a new cathedral and a competition was organized to choose the best design of the new cathedral. A young French architect Montferrand won the competition. He offered 24 projects of the future cathedral in different styles — in Byzantine, Romanesque, Gothic, and even in the manner of Indian and Chinese architecture. Monferrand's designs were criticised by some members of the commission but Alexander I liked it most of all. Montferrand was very talented but he had nearly no experience in constructing. And the task was very difficult – the alter had been consecrated and could not be ruined – so the cathedral had to be constructed around the alter. The construction works began but soon it started declining and Russian architects – Academicians of the Russian Academy of Arts helped Montferrand to correct his design. The cathedral took 40 years to construct, under Montferrand's direction, from 1818 to 1858. It is decorated by 112 monolith granite columns 114 tons each and by 400 relieves and bronze sculptures. You can enjoy a splendid panorama of Saint-Petersburg and its suburbs from the colonnade. Many technical innovations were introduced in the process of construction. For example, the dome was covered with the thinnest layer of gold mixed with mercury. Mercury evaporated and gold stayed in its place. Mercury is very poisonous so many workers died during the construction. Another technical innovation was a complicated system of scaffoldings and pulleys which was used to set the columns in their places. Inside the cathedral was decorated by the best painters of that time – Karl Bryullov, Klodt, Pimenov among them. We can also see beautiful mosaics there created in mosaics technique revived by M. Lomonosov – smalt - an alloy of glass with metal oxides. The iconstand is very beautiful – it is decorated with 8 malachite and 2 lapis lazuli columns and a huge stained glass. We can also see there a bust of the architect Montferrand made of all types of semi precious stones used for the cathedral decoration, wooden models of scaffoldings and the cathedral itself and the cross section of the dome model. St. Isaac's Cathedral is the forth largest domed cathedral in the world, after the Cathedral of St. Peter in Rome, the Cathedral of St. Paul in London and the Cathedral of St. Maria in Florence. It was a functioning church before 1917. Under the Soviet government, the building was abandoned, then turned into a museum of atheism. The dove sculpture was removed, and replaced by a Foucault pendulum. During World War II, the dome was painted over in gray to avoid attracting attention from enemy aircraft. On its top, in the skylight, a geodesical intersection point was placed, with the objective of aiding in the location of enemy cannon. On some columns you can see marks left by the Natzi bombs. They were specially preserved for people to remember about the WWII and the people who saved the beautiful monuments of our city.