🏛 Kazan Cathedral

Казанская пл., 2

Voronikhin's huge cathedral of grey Pudost stone, with a semicircle of 96 columns on Nevsky Prospekt.

The architect Andrey Voronikhin was a former serf of Count Stroganov, who freed him and sent him to study in Paris and Geneva.
In 1813 Field Marshal Mikhail Kutuzov was buried in the cathedral's left side chapel.
After 1812 trophies were brought to the cathedral: French banners, keys of captured cities and Marshal Davout's baton.
In 1834–1836 the iconostasis was clad in silver that Platov's Cossacks had taken from the French; it was melted down in 1922.
The monuments to Kutuzov and Barclay de Tolly by Boris Orlovsky were unveiled in 1837, on the 25th anniversary of the victory over Napoleon.
From 1932 it housed the Museum of the History of Religion and Atheism, and the first service after the break was held on 4 November 1990.
In 1893 the funeral service for Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky was held in the cathedral.