Transfiguration Cathedral

The Transfiguration Cathedral — officially the Cathedral of the Transfiguration of Our Savior of All the Guards — stands on Transfiguration Square and has never been closed for worship. The first church on this site was built in 1743–1754 to a design by Mikhail Zemtsov, by order of Elizabeth Petrovna, in memory of how the Guardsmen of the Preobrazhensky Regiment had helped her come to the throne. After Zemtsov's death the construction was headed by Pietro Trezzini, who altered the design into a five-domed Baroque building; the iconostasis was carved by the Moscow craftsmen the Kobylinskys after a sketch by Rastrelli. The cathedral was consecrated on 5 August 1754. In 1796, under Paul I, it was given the honorary status of the cathedral of all the Imperial Guards.

On 8 August 1825 a fire broke out that destroyed the building — only the walls survived. Between 1825 and 1829 the cathedral was rebuilt by the architect Vasily Stasov in the Empire style — it is this appearance that has survived to this day. The consecration took place on 5 August 1829; the main chapel is dedicated to the Transfiguration of the Savior, the southern one to Sergius of Radonezh, and the northern one to the hieromartyrs Clement of Rome and Peter of Alexandria. Its design served as a model for the Trinity Cathedral built in Morshansk between 1836 and 1857.

After the revolution the cathedral remained a functioning parish church, although its relics and captured banners were confiscated in 1918 and transferred to the Artillery Museum, and later to the Hermitage. From 1922 the cathedral came under the control of the Renovationist movement for a time, and from 1936 to 1944 it served as their main church in Leningrad. During the siege of Leningrad a bomb shelter for 500 people was set up in the basement, where aid was given to the wounded. In 1946–1948 the facades and interiors were restored.

The cathedral covers an area of 1,180 square metres and stands 41.5 metres tall. Its facades are decorated with twelve-metre-high four-column porticoes in the Ionic order, and the building is topped with a lit drum and dome flanked by four corner cupola-belfries; the north-western one houses a tower clock. The tall semicircular windows are framed by niches with balustrades, and the walls are decorated with stucco panels depicting military trophies. Inside, a four-tiered iconostasis designed by Stasov has survived, with icons by Grigory Ugryumov, Andrei Ivanov, Vasily Shebuyev and Alexei Yegorov, while the main dome is painted to resemble a cloudy sky with a star at its centre.

Around the cathedral, an unusual fence was erected in 1832–1833 to Stasov's design, commemorating the victory in the Russo-Turkish War of 1828–1829: its posts are the barrels of captured Turkish cannons, taken from the walls of the fortresses of Izmail, Varna, Tulcea, Isaccea and Silistra, and seized in the battle of Kulevcha. The barrels still bear the coats of arms of the Ottoman Empire and the engraved names of the guns.