In the Footsteps of Tsars

St. Isaac’s Cathedral is truly one of the most spectacular buildings in St Petersburg. It tops the list of recommended places to visit in nearly every guidebook, and for good reason. With its great dome (the third largest in Europe), towering over the Neva River from more than 101.5 meters above, the Cathedral cannot be missed.

St Isaac’s was built in the 19^th century by Auguste de Montferrand, a French architect commissioned by Tsar Alexander I, over the course of eighteen years. Montferrand studied St Peter’s Basilica (the largest domed structure) and St Paul’s in the United Kingdom (second largest…) extensively before constructing his masterpiece.

However great his architectural genius, Montferrand neglected to consider how the waterlogged soil of St Petersburg would handle the cathedral’s weight. Built almost entirely from Russia’s abundant marble deposits, St. Isaac’s weighs more than 350,000 tons (think 150,000 cars). Halfway into the 40 year project an enormous crack was spotted in the foundation and all construction was halted. Seeing his head on the chopping block, Montferrand contacted his rivals working in St Petersburg, and the entire architectural community attempted to devise a solution. Quickly, a hole matching the height of the completed cathedral was dug in the foundation. It was filled with tightly packed pine trees that had been dipped in tar (this gives them extraordinary stability in a moist environment) and marble. This solution succeeded in stabilizing the base of the cathedral, and construction was allowed to continue.

During the height of the Soviet Union, St. Isaac’s was used to house the Soviet Museum of Atheism, thus desecrating the sanctity of the cathedral and making it unusable. While Leningrad was under siege by the Germans in WWII, it also acted as a sdfehouse for the works normally stored in the Hermitage Museum (because of its indestructibility it has been dubbed “the safe”). Today the Cathedral remains a museum, but it has been rededicated to the architecture of Montferrand, and the history of the church. A small chapel exists in one of the wings of the church where services are held daily.