Smolny Cathedral — cathedral
Image by DEZALB from Pixabay

Smolny Cathedral

  • 2 min read
  • 59.949° N 30.396° E

Interesting facts

  • The cathedral stands about 93.7 metres high, dwarfing the convent buildings that surround it.
  • Rastrelli's unbuilt bell tower was planned at about 140 metres, taller than the spire of the Peter and Paul Cathedral.
  • Archaeologists later found the tower's foundation: roughly 10,000 oak piles driven into the ground about 4 metres deep.
  • Rastrelli's large wooden model of the whole convent survives in the museum of the Academy of Arts.
  • At the height of construction, some 2,000 soldiers and 1,500 craftsmen worked on the site each day.
  • The Soviet authorities closed the cathedral in 1922; it later served as a warehouse and, in the late Soviet years, a concert hall.
  • In 2001 the cathedral's 6-metre gilded cross fell; it was restored and raised again in 2004.
  • A 10-tonne bell, cast in Voronezh, was consecrated for the cathedral in 2013.
  • The church has three altars, dedicated to the Resurrection, Mary Magdalene and the Righteous Elizabeth.

Why it is worth it

Sky-blue walls, white columns and a cluster of five domes make Smolny Cathedral one of the most theatrical buildings in Saint Petersburg. It is the centrepiece of the Smolny Convent, designed by Francesco Bartolomeo Rastrelli, the architect of the Winter Palace and the Catherine Palace, and it shows the Elizabethan Baroque at its most exuberant: a tall central dome ringed by four smaller domed towers, all set within a square of convent buildings.

The convent was conceived for Empress Elizabeth, the daughter of Peter the Great. Passed over in the succession, she had at one point planned to retire into monastic life, but the coup of 1741 brought her to the throne instead, and the project became an imperial foundation. Rastrelli worked on it from 1748 to 1764. His design also included a colossal bell tower over the entrance, meant to be the tallest structure in Saint Petersburg and in all of Russia at the time, but after Elizabeth died in 1762 the money ran out and the tower was never built. Catherine the Great, who preferred the new Neoclassical taste, showed little interest in finishing the church. The interior was completed only in 1832–1835 by Vasily Stasov in a restrained Neoclassical manner, and the cathedral was consecrated on 22 July 1835, giving the building a Baroque body and a classical heart.

The name Smolny recalls the tar yards (smola means tar or pitch) that stood on this bend of the Neva in the city's early years, supplying the shipyards of Peter the Great's new capital. The cathedral faces Rastrelli Square on the left bank of the river, at the eastern edge of the historic centre, which is part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site Historic Centre of Saint Petersburg and Related Groups of Monuments. Saint Petersburg itself, founded by Peter the Great in 1703 as a window on the Baltic, served as Russia's capital for two centuries, and Smolny stands among its finest architectural ensembles.

Getting there

The cathedral stands in central Saint Petersburg, on the left bank of the Neva. Pulkovo Airport (LED) is about 18 km to the south.

Plan your visit

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Nearby places

On these lists

The Most Beautiful Places in Saint Petersburg 11The Most Beautiful Places in Russia 73The Most Beautiful Cathedrals in Russia 8The Most Beautiful Sacred Places in Russia 23The Most Beautiful Cathedrals 81The Most Beautiful Sacred Places 623

59.94888, 30.39559per Wikidata