Kazan Cathedral

Stand for a moment on the pavement of Nevsky Prospekt and look up. A great curved arm of stone columns reaches out toward you, pale grey and slightly rough, as if the building is opening its arms to the street. Trams and traffic hum behind you. Pigeons settle on the steps. In the shade between the columns the air feels a few degrees cooler. This is Kazan Cathedral, and the colonnade in front of you is one of the most recognisable shapes in Saint Petersburg.

If the curve looks familiar, there is a good reason. The cathedral was commissioned at the very end of the eighteenth century under Emperor Paul the First. He admired Saint Peter's Basilica in Rome, with its sweeping colonnade by Bernini. The new church on Nevsky was meant to answer it. Construction began in 1801, the year Paul died, and the cathedral was finished in 1811 under his son, Alexander the First.

The architect has one of the best stories in the city. Andrei Voronikhin was born a serf, which means he was legally bound to a noble landowner, the powerful Stroganov family. Count Alexander Stroganov saw his talent and supported his education. Voronikhin studied, travelled abroad, and was eventually freed. Then he won the commission to design this cathedral. A man born without legal freedom shaped one of the grandest buildings on the empire's main avenue.

Now here is the first surprise. Look carefully at the layout. The colonnade faces Nevsky Prospekt, but the main entrance of an Orthodox church traditionally sits on the west side, with the altar facing east. Nevsky runs past the cathedral's north side. So Voronikhin had a puzzle — how to give the street a grand face without breaking church tradition. His answer was this colonnade. It wraps the north side and gives the street a monumental front, while the true entrance and altar keep their proper places.

Count the columns as you walk the curve, if you have patience. There are ninety-six of them, in the Corinthian style, with capitals carved like bunches of acanthus leaves. The stone is worth touching. Much of the cathedral is clad in Pudost stone, a porous local limestone quarried not far from the city. It is soft when freshly cut and hardens in the air. Up close you can see its small holes and its slightly yellow-grey tone, very different from polished marble.

Walk toward the north side and find the large bronze doors. They are copies of the famous Gates of Paradise, the baptistery doors in Florence made by the Renaissance sculptor Lorenzo Ghiberti. Panel after panel shows scenes from the Old Testament in deep relief. Many people pass these doors without noticing them. Stop and look at the small figures, the buildings in perspective, the patient detail of the casting.

The cathedral takes its name from an icon, the Mother of God of Kazan. According to tradition, the original icon was found in the city of Kazan in the sixteenth century, and it became one of the most venerated images in Russia. Believers credit it with protecting the country in times of war. Inside the cathedral, a revered copy of this icon draws a steady line of worshippers. You will often see people waiting quietly, then bowing and kissing the glass.

The second surprise comes only a year after the church was finished. In 1812, Napoleon invaded Russia. The cathedral quickly became a memorial of that war, which Russians call the Patriotic War. Field Marshal Mikhail Kutuzov, who commanded the Russian army, prayed here before leaving for the front. After his death in 1813, he was buried inside the cathedral. Captured French banners and the keys of surrendered cities were brought here as trophies. A church built to echo Rome became a monument to victory over France.

Outside, two bronze statues stand in front of the colonnade. One is Kutuzov. The other is Michael Barclay de Tolly, the general who led the long retreat earlier in the campaign. The sculptor was Boris Orlovsky, and the statues were unveiled in 1837, on the anniversary of the war. Notice how the two men are placed as equals. Barclay's careful retreat was unpopular at the time, yet here he shares the square with the hero of the war.

The square in front of the cathedral has its own place in political history. In 1876, a small crowd gathered here in what is often called the first political demonstration in Russia. A young Georgi Plekhanov, who later became a leading Marxist thinker, gave a speech, and a red flag was raised. The police broke it up quickly. Over the following decades, this open space by the colonnade remained a natural meeting point for protests and gatherings.

The twentieth century brought a sharp turn. After the revolution, the Soviet state closed many churches. In the early 1930s, services here stopped, and the building became a museum of the history of religion and atheism. Think about that for a moment — a cathedral used to explain religion as something of the past. Services returned in the early 1990s, as the Soviet Union came to an end. Today the building is again a working Orthodox cathedral.

If you go inside, the mood changes at once. The noise of Nevsky falls away. Rows of tall granite columns line the interior, and candlelight flickers in front of the icons. You may smell incense and hear soft singing if a service is under way. Women usually cover their heads, and men remove their hats. People move slowly here, so it is worth matching their pace and keeping your voice low.

When you step back outside, walk a little way along the canal on the eastern side. From Kazan Bridge, look back. The colonnade, the dome, and the street all fit together in one view, the way Voronikhin intended. Then turn toward Nevsky again. The people sitting on the steps, the steady traffic, the flower beds in the square — all of it still moves inside the curve of those stone arms, more than two hundred years after they were raised.