St. Isaac's Cathedral, St. Petersburg (must see)

St. Isaac’s Cathedral is a monumental nineteenth-century church dedicated to Saint Isaac of Dalmatia, whose feast day coincided with the birthday of Peter the Great. The present cathedral is the fourth church dedicated to the saint in St. Petersburg. Designed by French-born architect Auguste de Montferrand, it was constructed over forty years, from 1818 to 1858, and became one of the largest and most technically ambitious building projects of imperial Russia.

The cathedral is a major example of late Russian Neoclassicism enriched with monumental sculpture and decorative arts. Its four porticoes incorporate 48 monolithic granite columns, while the enormous central gilded dome rises above four smaller domes. Inside, more than 4,000 square meters of space are decorated with marble, colored stone, gilded bronze, sculpture, painting, and mosaic. The main iconostasis is particularly notable for ten large columns faced with malachite and two smaller columns faced with lapis lazuli. Karl Bryullov designed the large composition The Virgin in Glory for the main dome, while monumental bronze doors carry sculptural biblical decoration. Because paintings inside the cathedral were vulnerable to the building’s climate, many compositions were gradually reproduced in mosaic, creating one of the most extensive nineteenth-century ensembles of monumental mosaic decoration in Russia. The cathedral ceased regular church use after the Revolution and opened as a state museum in 1931, initially with a strongly anti-religious exhibition program.

Today, St. Isaac’s Cathedral continues to operate primarily as a museum-monument, while Orthodox services are also held regularly. Visitors can explore the richly decorated interior and separately climb to the colonnaded observation walkway at a height of about 43 meters, which provides panoramic views over the historic center.