Smolny Cathedral
Smolny Cathedral was built as the central structure of the Smolny Monastery. The name “Smolny” is connected with the fact that in the early 18th century on this site was located Smolyanoy yard, where tar was boiled for the needs of the Admiralty shipyard. By order of Elizabeth Petrovna in 1748, architect Rastrelli began to build a monastery there, which was named Resurrection Novodevichy Smolny after the historical name of the area. Legend has it that Empress Elizabeth wanted to retire to this monastery in her old age. The first nuns were transferred here from the Novodevichy monasteries of Moscow and Smolensk.
General information
The building of the Smolny Cathedral is located in the center of the monastery yard, surrounded on the perimeter by residential two-story buildings with light turrets of house churches at the corners. The Smolny Convent complex is a true masterpiece of Russian Baroque. It was said that the famous architect Quarenghi, passing by it, every time took off his hat as a sign of reverence to the genius of Rastrelli.
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However, after the death of the royal client, the construction froze without being brought to completion. The monastery complex was given by the new Empress Catherine II under the Institute of Noble Maidens – a privileged closed educational institution, where girls 6-18 years old from noble families were brought up. The best of the pupils at the end of their studies were assigned to the court service..
As for the Smolny Cathedral, Rastrelli only had time to bring it under the roof. For a long time it stood unfinished, completed only in the 1830s. another architect – Vasily Stasov. After the revolution the cathedral was closed. Now the restored building is used as a concert and exhibition hall.
.The square in front of the cathedral already in Soviet times became known as Rastrelli Square.
.A legitimate question arises: what happened to the convent? With the death of the last nuns, the monastic life within the walls of the Smolny Convent faded away. The resumption of the Voskresensky Novodevichy Convent took place only during the reign of Nicholas I and already in a new place – on the present-day Moskovsky Avenue.
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Those entering St. Petersburg through the Moscow outpost already from afar saw a tall four-tiered bell tower with a gilded dome, reminiscent of the bell tower of Ivan the Great in the Moscow Kremlin. Behind the stone fence, separated from the road by green trees, stretched two-story buildings of the new monastery complex. In the center stood the new Resurrection Cathedral with a massive onion head and four small chapels. Alexander Blok wrote about this monastery in his poem “Retribution”:
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- Beyond the very city limits,
- Where the golden-headed one shines
- Novodevichy Monastery,
- Where the golden-headed glows.
- Fences, slaughterhouses and wasteland .
- Before the Moscow outpost…
In Soviet times the monastery was closed, the cathedral was looted, the bell tower was blown up. Severely damaged the monastery cemetery, where many famous statesmen and public figures, poets, composers, writers (Tyutchev, Vrubel, Napravnik, Nekrasov, Maykov, Botkin and others) are buried. In this cemetery there is a famous tombstone with a figure of Christ, where during the terrible blockade time Leningraders came to pray.
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In the surviving buildings without domes and orbs after the war housed the Research Institute of Electrical Machine Building. Now the monastery is being restored, and its buildings are being restored. The domes on the main building were installed on the roof of the temple, and recently they are already shining with new gilding. If you want to see it, you have to take the metro to the station “Moskovskie Vorota” and walk a little on the opposite side of Moskovsky Prospekt in the direction of reducing the numbering of houses.
.Visitors
- Address: Rastrelli Square, 3/1. Metro “Chernyshevskaya” .
- Tel: 710-31-59, 577-14-21. .
- Smolny Cathedral is a functioning church with services.
- Entrance with a guided tour – 150 p., students – 90 p., youth under 18 and pensioners – 20 p. Climbing the belfry of the Smolny Cathedral costs 100 p.
