The history of St. Isaac's Cathedral is revealed in the Presidential Library stock

The Presidential Library have digitized and featured on its website the historical documents related to the history of funding of the Saint Isaac's Cathedral in its Synodic period.

The cathedral was under constriction for 40 years at the expense of state and private investments. Since the beginning it was thought for the daily services, and a very large amount of money spent on the construction consisted of public money and private donations. Overall more than 23 million silver rubles were spent on the construction project.

The information about what was the contribution to the construction of the nearest Saint Isaac's Cathedral neighbor – the Most Holy Governing Synod could be found in the book entitled The specific assets of the Most Holy Governing Synod, an electronic copy of which is in open access on the Presidential Library website. The edition says that in addition to state-owned amounts the Holy Synod also owned so-called specific ones. They were collected from a variety of sources: there were financial credit documents and funds, the income from its own production (printing, for example), and private donations. Part of these funds at will of the donors was earmarked for the giant constriction in the center of St. Petersburg.

After the cathedral was transferred to the Ministry of Internal Affairs (at that time, apart from the issues of law and order, the ministry was also engaged with the widest range of tasks, including administration and maintenance of church buildings) the Synod was taking care of the expenses for the clergy, the accessories for services and the choir.

The Presidential Library stock contains unique documents, giving an idea that allowed the Cathedral, bearing the name of St. Isaac of Dalmatia, the minister of Peter I, to function. The magnificent stone colossus, a masterpiece of the architect Auguste de Montferrand, apart from owning world-class artistic values, also has sophisticated equipment, allowing maintaining a grand structure up and running.

An electronic copy of particular folder under the stamp of the Ministry of Internal Affairs has the title “On make appropriations in 1911 for inspecting the internal surface of the spherical dome of St. Isaac's Cathedral in St. Petersburg.”

The following is only rare experts known information about on what Imperial Ministry was ready to spend a lot of money on:

“The construction of St. Isaac's Cathedral, the technical supervision of which building belonged to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, was completed in 1856. Since then, some parts of it was not only repaired, but were not even inspected, failing a nearest access to them without the aid of cumbersome and expensive technical devices.

The building of the cathedral is overarched with a large outer dome, under which is a different, conical one and by the latter, in its turn, is the inner spherical dome of cathedral with a round opening in the middle. The latter consists of cast-iron ribs, below this ribs are planked with the boards, over which the plaster is applied and made the paintings of high artistic value. These boards that make up the inner surface of the dome are one of those places that has never been examined from the time of construction of the cathedral.”

The Presidential Library stock there are also two copies of digitized cases “On allowing 8,810 rubles a year for the maintenance of St. Isaac's Cathedral in St. Petersburg dated September 13, 1908” and “On the allocation of controlling the buildings of St. Isaac's Cathedral and the Cathedral of Christ the Savior in Moscow from the Ministry of Internal Affairs into the Office of the Orthodox confession from September 21, 1908.”

While in November 1916 the archive of the State Duma held “The case of the extension of allowances from the state treasury funds for the additional upkeep of St. Isaac's Cathedral with its clergy.”

So relevant today documents and regulations can be found in the electronic collection of the Presidential Library's on the History of the Russian Orthodox Church.