From Nevsky Prospect you can get a splendid view of the Cathedral of Resurrection, which stands on Griboedov Canal.
It is also called Our Savior on the Spilt Blood and commemorates the tragic event of 1 March 1881 when a terrorist threw a bomb and mortally wounded the Tsar, Alexander II. This cathedral was erected on the place of assassination by architect Parland in Neo-Russian style, which imitates Russian architecture in the second half of the nineteenth century. The cathedral is 81 meter high and is richly decorated with mosaics. The overall area of mosaic decoration amounts to 7 500 square meters. So the Cathedral of Resurrection can be truly regarded as the museum of the art of mosaic in Russia.
The cathedral itself has a tragic history: after the revolution it was used as a storage for vegetables and in the days of blockade even as morgue, all these has damaged the cathedrals decoration greatly. In the soviet days there were several projects to put the cathedral down. The first reason for that was that it didn’t go with classical architecture of Saint-Petersburg and the second reason dealt with a project to build a road on the place of the church.
Fortunately neither of the projects was carried on and now you have an opportunity to admire this wonderful masterpiece of Russian architecture. It is open as museum now and I will be glad to take you there.
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