Travel Photo of the Day 02-11-2013

Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood – St Petersburg, Russia

Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood

 

The Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood is also called the Cathedral of the Resurrection of Christ. The Church was built on the site where Tsar Alexander II was assassinated. The reference to spilled blood is a reminder that a terrorist bomb attack on March 1, 1881, by the revolutionary group Narodnaya Volya (People’s Will), tore the legs off of the tsar and left him bleeding to death.  Construction of the church began in 1883 under Alexander III as a memorial to his father. Work progressed slowly and was finally completed during the reign of Nicholas II in 1907. Architecturally, the Cathedral  reflects back to medieval Russian architecture which is much different from St. Petersburg’s other structures which are  predominantly  Baroque and Neoclassical. It intentionally resembles the celebrated St. Basil’s Cathedral in Moscow.