Kazan Cathedral

Kazan Cathedral is one of the largest churches in Saint Petersburg, built on Nevsky Prospekt between 1801 and 1811 to the design of the architect Andrei Voronikhin, to house the venerated copy of the miracle-working Kazan Icon of the Mother of God. The idea of a church resembling Rome's Saint Peter's Basilica had already been entertained by Emperor Paul I; it fell to his former serf, the architect Andrei Voronikhin, to bring the idea to life, after he was brought onto the project by Count Alexander Stroganov, president of the Academy of Arts and curator of the construction. Since church canon required the entrance to face west, while the cathedral's ceremonial façade needed to face Nevsky Prospekt, Voronikhin found an original solution — he framed the northern façade with a semicircular colonnade of 96 Corinthian columns arranged in four rows; scholars note a distant echo, though not a direct imitation, of Bernini's colonnade at Saint Peter's Basilica in the Vatican.

After the Patriotic War of 1812, the cathedral took on the significance of a monument to Russian military glory: captured French banners, the keys to conquered cities, and Marshal Davout's personal baton were brought here. In 1813 the commander Mikhail Kutuzov was buried in the cathedral, from where he had set out to lead the Russian army on its foreign campaign. Above his tomb hangs a copy of the Smolensk Icon of the Mother of God, which had accompanied the troops during the Battle of Borodino. In 1837 monuments to Kutuzov and Barclay de Tolly, the work of the sculptor Boris Orlovsky, were erected in front of the cathedral.

In 1932 the cathedral was closed and turned into the Museum of the History of Religion and Atheism, whose exhibition coexisted with services for several years already in the 1990s. Since 1991 the church has functioned as a parish, and since 2000 it has held the status of the cathedral church of the Diocese of Saint Petersburg of the Russian Orthodox Church. The cathedral gave its name to Kazan Square, Kazanskaya Street and the Kazan Bridge across the Griboyedov Canal, and its majestic colonnade remains one of the most recognisable architectural symbols of Nevsky Prospekt.