Nicholas Naval Cathedral
The Nicholas Naval Cathedral ( Russian: Никольский морской собор ) in Saint Petersburg , named after the patron saint of sailors , was built in the late Baroque style from 1753 to 1762 by the architect Savva Tschewakinsky , a student of Francesco Rastrelli . The cathedral on the Krjukow Canal is decorated with a blue and white facade and consists of numerous Corinthian columns; it is crowned by five gilded domes. The interior of the church is richly decorated with gold work and various stucco decorations and contains a magnificent iconostasis with pictures from the 18th century.
According to Russian tradition, the church consists of two church rooms, the lower and the upper church. The low and gloomy lower church is available to the people every day, while the more spacious, bright upper church is only open on public holidays and on special holidays.
The hopeless dreamer from Dostoyevsky's love story “White Nights” undertakes his nocturnal forays through the city in these tranquil surroundings.
Nicholas Cathedral was one of the few churches that did not close in Soviet times. In 1967 the funeral mass for the poet Anna Akhmatova was held here. The Orthodox church, originally built as a church for the employees of the Admiralty in the seafarers' quarter, is also the place where the seamen who perished at sea are commemorated. There are memorial plaques in the church for the crews of sunken submarines. The funeral masses for the crew of the submarine “ K-141 Kursk ”, which sank in 2000, also took place here.
Individual evidence
- ↑ The Nicholas Naval Cathedral on russianculture.ru ( Memento from September 27, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
Web links
Coordinates: 59 ° 55 ′ 21.1 ″ N , 30 ° 18 ′ 0.7 ″ E