🏛 Church of St Martin the Confessor on Alekseevskaya

ул. Александра Солженицына, 15/2

A large Neoclassical church of the 1790s with a massive dome and bell tower, built with funds from the merchant Zhigarev.

Metropolitan Platon conceived the new church after the Austrian emperor Joseph II visited Moscow in 1780.
The design was by Rodion Kazakov, and the money was given by the tea merchant Vasily Zhigarev, later the city mayor.
Construction began in 1791, and the main altar was consecrated only in 1806.
According to tradition, in 1812 Marshal Murat posted a guard at the church against marauders.
The main dome is a rotunda 17 meters in diameter; the bell tower, about 60 meters high, stood separately until the 1820s.
The altar screen in the form of a triumphal gate is dedicated to the victory over Napoleon; in Soviet times it was kept in the Donskoy Monastery.
The church was closed in 1931; in the 1980s a research institute's computing center worked here.