THE CATHEDRAL OF SAINT ISAAC OF DALMATIA (Isaakiyevsky Sobor)
Saint Petersburg, Russia.

Named after the patron saint of Peter the Great, the colossal St. Isaac's Cathedral dominates the Saint Petersburg skyline as the largest orthodox cathedral in the city. Commissioned by Czar Alexander I in 1818, the present 300,000 ton building was finally completed in 1858 after 40 years of construction. Architect Auguste Ricard de Montferrand embellished his heavily classical design with a gilded dome covered with 100 kilograms of pure gold. The monolithic columns of the austere exterior porches are of pink Vyborg granite and reach over 50 feet high and weigh 114 tons each. The interior is lavishly decorated with immense quantities of gilding, lapis lazuli, and malachite, creating a sumptuously grand worship space. Ironically, St. Isaac, in whose name all this titanic magnificence was done, was a relatively obscure Dalmatian monk.

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SMOLNY MONASTERY AND CATHEDRAL (Sobor Smolnovo-Monastyria)
Saint Petersburg, Russia.

The magnificent Smolny complex was created by architect Bartolomeo Rastrelli for the Empress Elizabeth, who had founded the Smolny convent. Begun in 1748, the cathedral is considered Rastrelli's masterpiece, perfectly fusing together Baroque forms with traditional Russian elements such as the five onion domes. Rastrelli was the favored court architect of Elizabeth, who had lavishly exuberant taste and loved the color blue highlighted with generous amounts of gilt. When Catherine the Great succeeded to the throne, she found all this extravagance garish, sacked the Italian architect, and steered Russia towards more restrained Classicism.

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SMOLNY MONASTERY AND CATHEDRAL (Corner Chapel)
Saint Petersburg, Russia.

The beautiful Smolny complex includes the lavish Cathedral surrounded by an enclosure in the shape of a Greek cross. At the corners of the cross are four domed chapels which relate back to the central cathedral. The result is a fairy-tale skyline rich with gold topped Russian onion domes. The architect Rastrelli had also originally planned a 420 foot bell tower which would have been one of the greatest towers of the Baroque era.

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