This five-domed dazzler is St Petersburg’s most elaborate church with a classic Russian Orthodox exterior and interior decorated with some 7000 sq m of mosaics. Officially called the Church of the Resurrection of Christ, its far more striking colloquial name references the assassination attempt on Tsar Alexander II here in 1881.
The church, which incorporates elements of 18th-century Russian architecture, is so lavish it took 24 years to build and went over budget by 1 million roubles – an enormous sum for the times. Following decades of abuse and neglect during the Soviet era, painstaking restoration began in the 1970s and took 27 years to be completed.
