Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood

The Church of the Resurrection of Christ, known as the Savior on Spilled Blood, is a memorial Orthodox church built on the embankment of the Griboyedov Canal on the very spot where, on 1 March 1881, Emperor Alexander II was mortally wounded in an assassination attempt by members of the People's Will movement. The church was built with funds collected from across Russia, by decree of his son, Alexander III, as a monument to his slain father. The design was created by the architect Alfred Parland together with Archimandrite Ignatius (Malyshev); construction lasted from 1883 to 1907, taking 24 years. The emperor insisted that the new church should echo the features of 16th–17th-century Russian architecture, particularly the churches of Yaroslavl, which is why the Savior on Spilled Blood is often compared to Moscow's Cathedral of Saint Basil the Blessed.

The nine-domed church, 81 metres high, can hold up to 1,600 people. The site of the emperor's fatal wounding — a section of the cobbled roadway and the embankment's railing — was incorporated within the church and framed as a separate canopied shrine on columns of jasper. The building is distinguished by its unusually lavish decoration: its façades are adorned with multicoloured tiles, glazed ceramics, and mosaic panels bearing the coats of arms of Russia's provinces and cities. Of particular value is the church's interior mosaic decoration, covering more than 7,000 square metres — one of the largest mosaic collections in Europe, created from designs by the artists Viktor Vasnetsov, Mikhail Nesterov, Andrei Ryabushkin and others in the workshop of Vladimir Frolov.

The cathedral was never a parish church: it was under the authority of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and served as a memorial to the Tsar-Liberator. After the revolution the church lost its state funding, and in the 1930s it was closed; over the years its premises housed a warehouse and workshops. The building suffered severe damage during the Siege of Leningrad. A lengthy restoration stretched over decades and was completed only in 1997, when the museum opened to visitors. Today the Savior on Spilled Blood holds the status of a museum while also functioning as an active church, drawing visitors with its vivid, almost fairy-tale silhouette on the Griboyedov Canal.