La Chiesa del Sangue Versato

This Church was built on the site where Emperor Alexander II was fatally wounded in March 1881.The church was built between 1883 and 1907. The construction was funded by the imperial family. The name of the church should not be confused with the Church on Blood in Honour of All Saints Resplendent in the Russian Land in Yekaterinburg, built on the site where Alexander’s grandson Nicholas II and his family were killed by the Bolsheviks in 1918.Architecturally, the Cathedral differs from St. Petersburg’s other structures. The city’s architecture is predominantly Baroque and Neoclassical, but the Savior on Blood harks back to medieval Russian architecture in the spirit of romantic nationalism. It intentionally resembles the 17th-century Yaroslavl churches and the celebrated St. Basil’s Cathedral in Moscow.The Church contains over 7500 square meters of mosaics—according to its restorers, more than any other church in the world. This record may be surpassed by the Cathedral Basilica of St. Louis, which houses 7700 square meters of mosaics. The interior was designed by some of the most celebrated Russian artists of the day.