Event: Russia - St. Petersburg

Church of the Saviour of the Spilled Blood

When:	Daily; not Wed
Where:	Church of the Saviour of the Spilled Blood
Opening Hours:	Thu-Tue 11am-6pm

Officially St Petersburg's Church of the Resurrection, events of 1 March 1881 led to its colloquial title of Church of the Saviour of the Spilled Blood. On that day, on this site, Tsar Alexander II was fatally wounded in an assassination by the so-called People's Will. His successor, Alexander III, ordered a cathedral to be built and chose designs that harked back at least 200 years, with onion domes and ornate mosaics emulating Moscow's St Basil's. During Soviet years the church fell into disuse, but its fortunes have revived with renovation as part of the museum of St Isaac's Cathedral. It reopened in August 1997.