Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood

Alexander II was killed by a bomb on this spot on the Griboyedov canal in March 1881, and his son ordered a church built over it - deliberately in the seventeenth-century Muscovite manner rather than the classical style of the surrounding city, with nine onion domes in coloured enamel and patterned brick, so it stands out sharply against the restrained Italianate embankments around it. It took from 1883 to 1907. Its interior is the point: about seven thousand square metres of mosaic, one of the largest such schemes anywhere, designed by Vasnetsov, Nesterov and other leading painters and executed over a decade. A section of the canal embankment where the tsar fell, including the paving stones, is preserved inside beneath a canopy. In the twentieth century it was closed and used as a store, and after twenty-seven years of restoration it reopened as a museum in 1997.

History

Construction began in 1883 under Alexander III, two years after his father Alexander II was killed on this spot, and was finished under Nicholas II in 1907 at an estimated 4.5 million rubles; the canal was narrowed so that the stretch of road where the tsar fell lies inside the church. It reopened in August 1997 after 27 years of restoration and serves as a museum of mosaics (Wikipedia, Church of the Savior on Blood).

Highlights

• The mosaics - about seven thousand square metres covering the whole interior.
• The preserved paving - the canal embankment stones where Alexander II fell, under a canopy.
• The Muscovite style - deliberately unlike the classical city around it.
• The domes - nine in coloured enamel and patterned brick.

When to go

Year-round. One to two hours. Summer evening opening avoids the daytime queues. Closed on Wednesdays.

Good to know

Queues are long in season - buy online or come at the evening session. It operates as a museum rather than a working church, with a ticket. Interior crowds make it hard to look up properly. Closed Wednesdays.

Nearby

The Russian Museum is across the canal; Nevsky Prospekt is a minute away.

Key facts