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Smolny Cathedral, St. Petersburg

The Smolny Cathedral is a masterpiece of Rastrelli, the pearl of the ensemble of the Smolny Convent. Today it is the center of a well-groomed quarter near the residence of the governor in the building of the Smolny Institute, and under Peter I there were "resin yards" - a branch of the Admiralty shipyard, where they brewed resin for building ships. Nearby stood a modest wooden palace "Resin House", later rebuilt in stone. Empress Elizabeth Petrovna lived there in her youth, and in her mature years she chose this place to build a monastery, where she planned to leave the world in her old age. Therefore, the monastery was built as a palace, and the Smolny Cathedral is still the most elegant and elegant of the main churches of St. Petersburg. The white-blue temple with gilded heads is so perfect and harmonious that it creates optical effects. It seems to be floating in the air, decreasing as it approaches.

The project of the Smolny Resurrection Novodevichy Monastery created Rastrelli. He planned to build a single-domed temple of the European type in the center of the complex, but Elizabeth insisted on the traditional five-domes for the Russian churches. Rastrelli succeeded in combining both traditions: it looks like a five-domed cathedral, and in fact it has one dome, surrounded by four subsidiary cupolas, belfries. Like all the main churches in St. Petersburg, Smolny was built for a very long time - almost a hundred years, from 1748 to 1835. The project of Rastrelli was continued by Yury Velten, and finished by Vasily Stasov. In style, the classicist Stasov was almost an antagonist of the baroque genius Rastrelli, but he retained Rastrelli's spirit and perfection of proportions, but added simplicity and brevity. White-blue walls with high windows, vases and garlands, the heads of cherubs - the church is beautiful special fragile beauty, reminiscent of the "female government", and the pupils of the Smolny Institute next door.

The decorative interior of the Smolny Cathedral for the Soviet years has been lost. Preserved individual elements: white stucco angels, wings, palm branches, flowers - symbols of air and earth. There are absolutely no and there were no symbols of fire and power usual for a temple of such scale. Today, the cathedral is in an intermediate state: the concert hall is not exactly the same as it was for many years, not a church or a museum, but all together. You can go inside and appreciate the basic elements - a huge white space under a magnificent dome, decorated with marble. There is an auditorium and a stage, in the free space - an exhibition of iconography and restoration projects.

For some money, by session, you can climb with a tour of the belfry. But the most accessible and pleasant thing is to wander in the courtyard of the monastery, between the renovated and still waiting for the restoration of old buildings. The cathedral is surrounded by four corner churches and residential buildings with bunk arcades on the facade. Pay attention to the openwork fence of the temple, molded according to Stasov's drawing - it is a work of art at the level of the fences of the Summer Garden and the Kazan Cathedral. Nearby, in front of the governor’s residence, is a square with a fountain and busts of Marx and Engels.

LOCAL FEATURES
The belfry of the Smolny Cathedral is the highest museum observation deck of the city. It is located at a height of 50 meters, leading up to 277 steps. From the belfry opens a magnificent panorama of the Neva and the quarters of historic St. Petersburg.

The Cathedral itself looks great from Rastrelli Square, from Shpalernaya Street and Suvorov Avenue. A very spectacular view opens from the opposite bank of the Neva. In clear weather, the domes of the cathedral are visible from the colonnade of St. Isaac's Cathedral.

In the Smolny Cathedral concerts of spiritual, classical and contemporary music are held, exhibitions of paintings and photographs are organized.

HISTORY
Resurrection of Christ (Smolny) Cathedral, surrounded by four corner churches and residential buildings, built a long 87 years. Only in the 1830s the temple, begun by Rastrelli in 1748, was completed by Vasily Stasov. The Smolny Cathedral was consecrated on July 20, 1835 and received the status of the cathedral "of all educational institutions in the name of the Resurrection of Christ".

The height of the cathedral is 93.7 meters, it can accommodate up to 6 thousand people. Rastrelli planned to erect a five-tiered bell tower nearby, which was supposed to be the highest in Russia (140 meters, 18 meters above the spire of the bell tower of the Peter and Paul Cathedral), however, he didn’t have time to realize this plan. His followers decided that the giant bell tower would not fit into the urban landscape.

The Resurrection Novodevichy (Smolny) Monastery, the first convent of St. Petersburg, received nuns in 1764. It lasted until 1797 (until the death of the last of 14 nuns), then the Widow's House was located in its premises.

Also since 1764, an educational institution for girls of noble and petty-bourgeois origin - the Institute of Noble Girls (Smolny Institute) was located in the free buildings of the monastery. Later, Catherine II established a school for girls of lower classes, which is located in a nearby building, designed by the architect Y.M. Felten. It was called the Alexander Institute. In 1806–1808, a special building for the Smolny Institute of Noble Maidens, built by Giacomo Quarenghi, was erected to the south of the monastery. There is a legend that every time Kvarengi passed by the Smolny Cathedral, he stopped in front of the main entrance, took off his hat and exclaimed: “This is the temple!” - and then went to his own project. The Smolny Kvarengi Institute pushed back a few meters from the facade line of the Smolny Monastery, as if yielding the primacy of Rastrelli.

In August 1917, as we know, the revolutionary headquarters was housed in the Smolny Institute; today, the city administration sits there. The cathedral after 1917 was closed and used as a warehouse. In the 1970s – 1980s, he became a branch of the State Museum of the History of Leningrad. The exposition “Leningrad today and tomorrow” was located here, telling about the achievements of industry.

Since 1990, the cathedral operates a concert and exhibition hall. Here concerts, exhibitions of painting, graphics and arts and crafts, scientific and historical and art museum exhibitions are held. Since 2004, the Smolny Cathedral has been a part of the museum of four cathedrals “The State Museum-Monument "St. Isaac's Cathedral"".

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