Restoration work on the cathedral built to commemorate the death of Tsar Alexander II is finally nearing completion.
On March 1, 1881 two assassins from the terrorist organization The People's Will intercepted the Tsar's coach and entourage on the Catherine Canal Embankment and threw a bomb onto his lap, mortally wounding the Tsar.
This was an event of monumental importance, and the public spectacle of the Tsar's blood flowing freely in the street demanded a response, an interpretation, an acknowledgement that something exceptional had occurred on this spot.
The assassinated Tsar's heir, Alexander III, built the Church of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, popularly known as the Savior on Spilled Blood, directly on the assassination site. Begun in 1883, opened in 1907, then closed by Stalin in 1932, this cathedral has been the subject of a painstaking 50-year restoration project due for completion this summer.
"We had to work from old black and white photographs, working in forms that were unfamiliar to us, it is a very difficult and expensive project" said Valentina Voronova, chief architect of the restoration team used to restoring the city's neo-classic architecture.
Restorers were initially skeptical of their ability to successfully restore the Russian revival-style cathedral. "These designs (on the church facade) look simple at first, but then you look closer and say `now how did they do that?' These tiles here were so complicated it would have been cheaper to put up gold leaf," said Voronova, pointing out a multicolored arch consisting of 75 different shapes of tile.
The Savior on Spilled Blood is a striking exception to the classical and baroque architecture of St Petersburg; a deliberate anachronism built to instill in the revolutionary populace of 19th century St Petersburg a sense of the glory of old Russia, with God and the Tsar boldly at the helm.
A visitor happening upon the Savior on Spilled Blood is struck by the incongruity of the building, which resembles St Basil's on Red Square in Moscow. The church is actually modelled on 17th-century Orthodox cathedrals in Yaroslavl, a city in central Russia. It is built on an east-west axis with a shrine over the preserved cobblestones of the assassination site on one end and the altar on the other. The interior is covered from floor to arched ceiling in 7,500 sq meters of mosaics, depicting scenes of martyrdom, linking Alexander II's murder with the crucifixion.
"The Savior on Spilled Blood has more mosaic decoration than any other cathedral in the world," said Voronova. Most people don't know this, because the church has been closed 62 years. Understandably upset with a monument likening the Tsar to Jesus Christ and built to the glory of both, Stalin closed the church as a possible rallying point for reactionary opposition. Rumors persist that the Savior on Spilled Blood narrowly escaped destruction in the thirties.
The communists were not shy about destroying important churches, such as Moscow's Church of the Savior, which is now being rebuilt from scratch, or defiling them for other "useful" purposes, such as conversion to granaries (as was the case with the 12th-century cathedrals in Suzdal), or even to swimming pools (as was the case with the the Lutheran Church of St Peter on Nevsky Prospect).
"In this case I don't think it was politics that damaged the Savior on Spilled Blood," said Alexey Rikonin, director of the St Petersburg Restorers' Institute. "It was more ignorant management."
After the February revolution that deposed the Tsar, the church was opened to the general public. The crowds that flocked to the church damaged the delicate pink marble floors. Further damage occurred after the church was closed, when collectors snuck in and pried decorative stone carvings and gold leaf off the walls.
The bulk of the damage was done during World War II, when the church was hit by shells and a rocket flew through a window on the central cupola and exploded on the floor.
The damage was patched up using a putty made out of marble dust of the same color as the original. Silver chandeliers were rebuilt by craftsmen working from photographs, and work is progressing on the altar over the assassination site, originally made entirely of semi-precious stones from France and the Caucusus, and supported by four columns of gray-violet jasper.
"I like this marble here," said Voronova, running her hand along the panelling behind the altar. "We happened to find the same Italian firm that sold stone to the original architect; it's still in business today." "In Orthodox Churches women aren't allowed behind the altar," Voronova notes with irony, as she describes her meticulous efforts to restore this part of the church.
But the Savior on Spilled Blood won't be an operating Orthodox Church again, except at Easter and Christmas. Now project administrators are interested in a less lofty goal: bringing tourist money into the city. As with Prague and Budapest, the communist government preserved the quiet dignity of the old center in St Petersburg. Post-war redevelopment and restoration progressed without commercial considerations: the main thrust of the work was aimed at rebuilding St Petersburg exactly as it was, without significantly changing historic real estate.
Over 80% of the funding for the Savior on Spilled Blood project comes from hard currency proceeds at St Isaac's Cathedral, which is under the same administration. "We aren't sure when the opening will be because our funding is so uncertain," said Gregory Petrovich, director of St Isaac's Cathedral.
But over a hundred years after the assassination, a few months more hardly seems to matter.