Naval Cathedral in Kronstadt

Interesting facts

From 1898 to 1913 every serviceman of the Baltic Fleet had 1/400 of his pay deducted towards the cathedral, raising about 280,000 roubles.

The design brief demanded that the cathedral's cross be the first thing sailors saw as their ships approached Kronstadt from the sea.

An earlier design by Antony Tomishko, architect of the Kresty prison, won the 1898 contest, but Admiral Stepan Makarov persuaded Nicholas II to drop it in 1900.

Before construction began, the Kosyakov brothers produced an album of nearly a thousand drawings detailing the structure, exterior and interior of the cathedral.

The twin bell towers flanking the main portal reflect Romanesque influence, a feature almost unknown in Russian church architecture of the time.

The marble floor, set in thin copper frames, was decorated with mosaic fish, jellyfish, sea plants and ships.

When completed, the building had its own central heating, a built-in central vacuum-cleaning system and some 5,000 electric light bulbs.

The final cost reached about 1,955,000 roubles, an unprecedented sum, not counting donated materials and unpaid labour by sailors and townspeople.

Closed in 1929, the cathedral became a cinema named after Maxim Gorky, which locals nicknamed 'Maksimka', and later a concert hall and a navy museum.

In 2002 a helicopter tried to lift a new seven-metre cross onto the dome, but it fell and was ruined; a third cross went up that November.

Why it is worth it

The Naval Cathedral of Saint Nicholas in Kronstadt was built as the principal church of the Russian Navy and a memorial to all seamen lost at sea. Its broad central dome, nearly 30 metres across, floats above Anchor Square on Kotlin Island and is visible far out over the Gulf of Finland; the cross at the top stands about 70.6 metres above the ground.

The architect Vasily Kosyakov travelled to Constantinople and Greece in 1900–1901 to study Byzantine buildings at first hand, and he took the proportions of Hagia Sophia as his model. The site was dedicated in October 1901, the foundation walls were laid in May 1903, the structure was complete by 1907, and the cathedral was consecrated on 10 June 1913. The result is often regarded as the culmination of the Late Neo-Byzantine style in Russia: a compact, centralised mass crowned by a single great cupola, with an interior of about 3,000 square metres able to hold some 5,000 worshippers. Its interior measures about 77 by 54 metres.

Kronstadt itself was founded by Peter the Great in 1704 on an island taken from Sweden during the Great Northern War, to guard the sea approaches to his new capital. It became the main base of the Russian Baltic Fleet, a fortress town of naval yards and docks whose population reached well over 50,000 in the 19th century. Its historic centre belongs to the UNESCO World Heritage Site Historic Centre of Saint Petersburg and Related Groups of Monuments, and the cathedral, at the heart of the town, is its defining landmark.

Getting there

The cathedral stands in the centre of Kronstadt, on Kotlin Island, about 30 km west of central Saint Petersburg. The island is linked to the mainland by the road along the Saint Petersburg Dam. Pulkovo Airport (LED) is about 35 km away in a straight line.

From the encyclopaedia

The Naval cathedral of Saint Nicholas in Kronstadt is a Russian Orthodox cathedral built in 1903–1913 as the main church of the Russian Navy and dedicated to all fallen seamen. The cathedral was closed in 1929, was converted to a cinema, a House of Officers (1939) and a museum of the Navy (1980).

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Naval Cathedral in Kronstadt

Interesting facts

Why it is worth it

Getting there

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From the encyclopaedia