The Cathedral of Christ the Savior is the most magnificent cathedral in Moscow. Up to 10 000 people can find place there and its height with the dome and the cross is 105 m (3,5 m higher, than Isaakievskiy cathedral).
The cathedral that we can see today on the left coast of the Moskva River opposite the Pushkin museum and near the Kremlin is very young - it was constructed only in 2000. Nevertheless the history of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior had begun in 1912 when for the first time an idea to construct the Cathedral was born. Due to the manifesto of Alexander I the cathedral was intended to memorate the victory of brave Russian people over Napoleon's army, of course, not without the help of God. The Cathedral was layed down in 1817 on Vorobyovy Gory, but, according to the official version, the ground started to give under the weight of the walls.
In 1839 they started to erect the Cathedra on the place of the former Alekseevsky female monastery near the Kremlin. The legend says that the abbess of the monastery damned this place and predicted that no building will stay here longer than for 50 years. The building of the Cathedral under the project of an architect Konstantin Ton took 39 years. On May, 26th, 1883 the Cathedral was solemnly consecrated. The cathedral`s foundation represented a cross with equal sides. The external part was decorated with marble high reliefs made by such sculptors as Klodt, Loginovsky and Ramazanova. All the entrance doors (there were twelve of them) were made of bronze and the images of sacred decorating them were casted according to sketches of a well-known sculptor - duke P.Tolstoy. Contemporaries were admired by the sizes of a temple: it could hold up to 10 000 persons. Such well-known masters as Vasily Surikov, Ivan Kramskoj, Vasily Petrovich Vereschagin and other famous artists of Imperial academy of arts worked on frescoes. The building was surrounded with gallery which became the first museum of war of 1812. On gallery walls marble boards were built in, on which all battles of Russian army were listed in a chronological order, the names of military leaders, distinguished officers and soldiers were listed.
The temple existed for 48 years: on December, 5th, 1931 it was demounted and exploded due to I.V.Stalin's order, and it was ordered to construct the Palace of Councils on its place, with a huge statue of Lenin at the top. The building of the Palace was stopped because of the Second World War, and later the foundation pit was used during the building of a swimming-pool "Moscow" which existed for 30 years.
In the late eighties a social movement for The Cathedral reconstruction appeared, and in July, 1992 the President of Russia B.N.Yeltsin issued a decree about creation of revival Fund of Moscow. In the list of objects subject to restoration on the first place there was a Temple of Christ the Savior. The project of restoration was prepared by a restorer Alexey Deniss. Later he gave way to Zurab Tsereteli who departed from Denisov's original project, that was confirmed by the Moscow authorities, and finished the building. According to his instructions bronze compositions (high reliefs) appeared on white stone walls, which gave rise to criticism for it was an obvious withdrawal from the original. Thanks to improbably prompt speed of building the recreated Cathedral was consecrated in 2000.
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