Chesme Church

The Chesme Church, whose full name is the Church of the Nativity of St. John the Baptist, is one of the few examples of Gothic Revival style in 18th-century Russian church architecture. The pink-and-white building with lacy decoration was built to a design by architect Yuri Felten in 1777–1780 to commemorate the victory of the Russian fleet over the Turkish fleet in the Battle of Chesme in 1770. According to legend, Empress Catherine II received news of the victory at precisely this spot while traveling from Saint Petersburg to Tsarskoye Selo, which determined the choice of the site. The ceremonial foundation was laid in 1777 in the presence of the empress and the Swedish king Gustav III, as a reminder of Russia's military power, and the consecration was timed to the tenth anniversary of the victory, with the participation of Holy Roman Emperor Joseph II. Together with the nearby Chesme Palace, the church formed a unified ensemble facing the former Tsarskoye Selo highway.

The church has a "centric" plan in the form of a quatrefoil, rare for Orthodox architecture: a square base space covered by a dome is surrounded by four semicircular volumes connected by pointed arches resting on four pylons. The facades are covered with thin vertical ribs against a reddish background, tall pointed windows, lacy white-stone ornamentation, a crenellated parapet, and sharp pinnacle turrets. The building is crowned with five small domes topped with miniature spires. Above the entrance are sculptures of "Faith" and "Hope," unusual for the Orthodox canon, shown with uncovered, loose hair.

After its consecration, the church was handed over to the Chapter of the Order of St. George the Victorious, so for a time it was called the Church of St. George; the empress often attended services there, and a royal pew was set up for her in the church. During the Soviet era the church was closed in 1919, the crosses were removed from the domes, and the building was used for warehouses and workshops; in 1930 a fire destroyed the historic iconostasis, and the Great Patriotic War inflicted further damage on the building.

A large-scale restoration of the building took place in the 1960s under the direction of architect Alexei Kulikov: the domes, brickwork, and lost decorative elements were restored. In 1977 a branch of the Naval Museum, "The Victory of Chesme," opened in the church. Worship services resumed in 1991, and in 1994 the building was returned to the diocese; an iconostasis recreated from archival drawings was consecrated in 1998. Nearby is the historic Chesme Military Cemetery, and the church itself holds the status of an architectural monument of federal significance.