The Church of Our Savior on Spilled Blood

Newly reopened - for the first time since the 1930s.This marvelous Russian-style church was built on the spot where Emperor Alexander II was assassinated on March 1 1881. Constructed between 1883 and 1907, the church was designed in the spirit of sixteenth- and seventeenth century Russian architecture, inspired particularly by St Basil's Cathedral on Red Square in Moscow. The interior of the church, a memorial to the late Emperor Alexander II, was decorated with different shades of marble and several thousand square yards of mosaic. After the October Revolution of 1917 the church met the sad fate the vast majority of the country's churches and was closed for services in the late 1920s. It served briefly as the venue for an exhibition of revolutionary propaganda and gradually fell into decay. It was suggested many times that the church be torn down, for being an "inappropriate" symbol of Christianity in the midst of a newly and largely atheistic country. It is a miracle that the church survived this period. In 1970 Our Savior was brought under the management of St Isaac's Cathedral, who instituted a program of restoration that lasted an incredible 25 years. Today, the church's onion domes have been newly gilded and its interiors painstakingly restored to their former glory and the church is open to the public. This has to be one of the city's most beautiful sights and a great spot for taking pictures. There are also lots of souvenir stalls nearby.