Cathedral of Christ the Saviour

The original cathedral was begun in 1839 to mark the end of the Napoleonic invasion, took over forty years to build, and stood as the tallest Orthodox church anywhere at 103 metres, decorated by the leading Russian painters of the century. In December 1931 it was dynamited to clear the site for a Palace of Soviets, a tower intended to be the tallest building in the world with a statue of Lenin on top; the foundations flooded, the war intervened and it was never built. In 1958 the excavation was turned into the Moskva open-air swimming pool, the largest in the world, which operated until 1994. The cathedral was then rebuilt on the site between 1995 and 2000, externally close to the original and internally reworked, funded by a mixture of state and public money. What stands is therefore a 1990s building on a nineteenth-century design, and it is honest to say so.

What you actually see

• The rebuilt cathedral - a 1995 to 2000 reconstruction of the 1839 to 1883 original.
• The height - 103 metres, the tallest Orthodox church in the world.
• The site history - demolished 1931, an unbuilt tower, then an open-air pool until 1994.
• The observation platform - a walkway with views over the Moskva and the centre.

When to go

Year-round. One to two hours. The observation platform is ticketed and has separate hours from the cathedral.

Honest expectations

Everything visible is from the 1990s - the original was destroyed entirely. Strict dress rules apply and are enforced. Photography inside is prohibited. It is an active cathedral and services close sections.

Nearby

The Pushkin Museum is across the road; the Kremlin is a short walk east.