The Presidential Library’s materials tell about the construction of the Kazan Cathedral

The foundation stone of one of the largest and best known cathedrals of St. Petersburg – the Kazan Cathedral – was held 220 years ago, on September 8, 1801.

The place for its construction was not chosen by chance. Since 1733, the Church of the Nativity of the Virgin has been located here. This temple near Nevsky Prospect was often called Kazan, as it kept the miraculous icon of the Kazan Mother of God, brought from Moscow back in 1710 by order of Peter I. In this church, the future Emperor Paul I was married with his first wife Natalya Alekseevna, here after palace coup in 1762, the Senate and Synod swore allegiance to Catherine II.

The book Journey to St. Petersburg of Abbot Georgel in the Reign of Emperor Paul I (1913) provides a description of the former Kazan temple: “The imperial court solemnly gathers in this church to celebrate brilliant victories; it is not large and not spacious enough ... <...> The Kazan Cathedral is very richly decorated: the sovereigns generously endowed it with jewels. On solemn days I saw more than a thousand burning candles there, except for many lighted lamps made of gold or silver that burn in front of the altar".

The abbot was right: by the end of the 18th century, the population of St. Petersburg had grown significantly and the temple had become "insufficiently spacious". The heir to the throne, Pavel Petrovich, first thought about this when he traveled around Europe in 1781 under the name of “Count of the North”. The greatness of St. Peter's Cathedral in Rome shocked the future emperor, who wished that "the archbishop of Moscow would serve in such a church in Moscow". However, later it was decided to build a new church in St. Petersburg, turning the small Kazan Church into a huge cathedral that could compete with the main temple of the Catholic world.

In 1799 a competition was announced for the design of the temple which involved the best architects of that time participated - Charles Cameron, Jean Thomas de Thomon, Pietro Gonzago, Giacomo Quarenghi and others. However, completely unexpectedly for everyone, Paul I approved the project of the little-known Andrei Voronikhin, the former serf Count Alexander Stroganov, the President of the Academy of Arts.

The future architect of the Kazan Cathedral from early childhood showed the ability to draw. He was born into a peasant family in the village of Usolye, Perm province, and it is clear that there could be no idea of painting.

Four years later, on November 22, 1800, an imperial order, which said: "For the construction of the Kazan Church, according to the plan confirmed by Us, we command ... to produce the building for the architect Voronikhin" was issued. “Imbued with the grandeur of the task entrusted to him, - continues Yatsimersky, - Voronikhin put all his talent in the execution of this work, and the plan drawn up by him was, in the full sense of the word, a work of art. The nugget architect took as a model for his inspired work the plan of the Parisian House of Invalides, executed by the Russian artist Bazhenov..."

In March 1801, after the death of Emperor Paul I, the first stone in the foundation of the Kazan Cathedral was laid by his son, Alexander I. This identical event took place on September 8 (August 27, according to the old style), 1801. Two weeks later, when the new emperor went to Moscow for his coronation, the construction of the temple was in full swing.

Voronikhin's dream was to erect the cathedral by the efforts of exclusively Russian craftsmen only using Russian materials. Indeed, not a single foreigner participated in the construction of the temple, and the main material was Pudost stone, mined near Gatchina - the outer walls of the cathedral, columns, capitals and bas-reliefs were made of it. The plinth was made of large monoliths of gray Serdobol (Sortavala) granite. Domestic materials were also used in the decoration of the temple: Olonets, pink Belogorsk, Ruskeala marble, crimson Shoksha quartzite from Karelia, Riga limestone, Estonian dolomites, Altai porphyries...

The history of the construction of the internal columns of the cathedral is of interest. In 1801, during a honeymoon, Voronikhin went with his young wife to the Karelian Isthmus. Having visited the quarries where the granite was mined, the architect came to the conclusion that this particular material is most suitable for the manufacture of the interior columns of the cathedral under construction. Soon, near Vyborg, large-scale works on breaking granite began, which peasants from the nearby provinces worked on. This process took a lot of time, experience and skill; no less difficult was the delivery of the columns to St. Petersburg and their further processing, which was supervised by the brilliant Russian mason-nugget Samson Sukhanov.

“Foreigners were amazed by the Russian workers who built the Kazan Cathedral, - wrote essayist Georgy Severtsev in his article St. Petersburg at the beginning of the 19th century published in Istoricheskiy Vestnik in 1903. - “They, these simple men in torn sheepskin coats, did not need to resort to various measuring instruments; glancing inquisitively at the plan or model indicated to them, they copied them accurately and gracefully. The eye gauge of these people is extremely accurate. They were in a hurry with the completion of the construction of the cathedral; despite the winter time and 13-15 degrees of frost, the work continued even at night. Firmly gripping the ring of the lantern with their teeth, these amazing workers, climbing up the woods, diligently did their job. The ability of even ordinary Russians in fine arts technique is amazing"".

September 27, 1811, marking the tenth anniversary of the coronation of Alexander I, the Kazan Cathedral was solemnly consecrated. According to Yatsimirsky, “the consecration of the temple was “a real holiday of Russian building art: just as the cathedral itself was built according to the plan and under the supervision of a Russian nugget artist, so the material for its construction was taken from the depths of the Russian land, processed by Russian craftsmen, on Russian state factories"".

The cathedral was also destined to become a pantheon of glory for Russian weapons - Field Marshal Mikhail Illarionovich Kutuzov was buried in it and the trophies of the Patriotic War of 1812 and foreign campaigns of 1813-1815 were placed.

“The construction of the Kazan Cathedral in Voronikhin's activities was his most famous work”, -  wrote Yatsimirsky. - This work, majestic in its tasks and brilliant in performance, was that cherished work for Voronikhin, having completed which, he could say with a feeling of full self-satisfaction: “Now let go of your servant, Master” ... As if realizing that he had done “within the earth the earthly", the artist-nugget suddenly rested from his labors, - upon the final conclusion of all additional work on the interior decoration of the cathedral, - on February 21, 1814".

In 1932, the cathedral was closed, and the Museum of the History of Religion and Atheism housed its building. In 1998, the Kazan Cathedral was consecrated again, and on December 31, 2000 it was given the status of a cathedral, the main church of the St. Petersburg diocese of the Russian Orthodox Church.