Church of the Savior on Blood

Interesting facts

In 1961 restorers found a German 240 mm high-explosive shell of about 150 kg that had lain undetected in the central dome since the siege.

Beneath a jewelled canopy inside the church, a section of the original cobbled street and embankment railing where the tsar fell is preserved.

The canal embankment was narrowed so that the exact stretch of road where the attack happened could be enclosed within the church walls.

The central dome rises to 81 metres, and the church was designed to hold up to 1,600 people.

An architectural competition in 1881 drew 26 anonymous entries; the chosen design was by Alfred Parland together with the archimandrite Ignatius Malyshev.

The mosaics were made in Vladimir Frolov's workshop after designs by more than 30 artists, among them Viktor Vasnetsov and Mikhail Nesterov.

The mosaic work was so slow that it delayed the church's consecration by about ten years, until 1907.

Granite plaques on the outer walls record the main events and achievements of Alexander II's reign.

Mosaic coats of arms of the provinces and cities of the Russian Empire decorate the western facade beneath the main dome.

The iconostasis's Holy Gates, lost in the 1920s, were recreated in enamel and consecrated in 2012 on the anniversary of the assassination.

Why it is worth it

The Church of the Savior on Blood marks the exact spot on the Griboedov Canal embankment where Alexander II was fatally wounded by a bomb thrown by a member of the Narodnaya Volya revolutionary group in March 1881. His son, Alexander III, ordered a memorial church built on the precise location — construction ran from 1883 to 1907, nearly a quarter century, specifically so the building could stand exactly where the emperor fell rather than merely nearby.

Inside, the walls and ceilings carry more than 7,000 square meters of mosaic — by its restorers' count, more than any other church on Earth — used instead of painted frescoes partly because mosaic holds up better against St. Petersburg's damp climate, and partly because the imagery deliberately links the tsar's death to the crucifixion of Christ.

The building barely survived the century that followed. Revolutionaries ransacked it in 1917, Soviet authorities closed it in the 1930s, and during the wartime Siege of Leningrad it served first as a temporary morgue and later as a vegetable warehouse — earning it the grimly practical nickname Spas na Kartoshke, "the Savior on Potatoes," among residents who lived through it. It has never been reconsecrated as an active parish church.

Good to know

More than 7,000 square meters of mosaic inside, reportedly more than any other church in the world.
Functions as a museum today, not a working parish.

Getting there

Located in Saint Petersburg. Pulkovo Airport (LED) is about 16 km away.

Plan your visit

We have no confirmed visit data yet. Once it is confirmed, this block also carries the date it was checked.

From the encyclopaedia

The Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood is a Russian Orthodox church in Saint Petersburg, Russia which currently functions as a secular museum and church at the same time. The structure was constructed between 1883 and 1907. It is one of Saint Petersburg's major attractions.

Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0