Mosaic

The church of the ‘Saviour on the Blood’ in St Petersburg is a former cathedral founded on a titillatingly gruesome basis. Alexander II was a reformist Tsar who oversaw the Emancipation of the Serfs. He was subject to many assassination attempts, one of which succeeded.  The ‘Saviour on the Blood’ was built over the cobblestones on which his blood was spilled, a fate brought about by members of the anarchist group ‘The People’s Will’. The stones themselves are preserved to this day beneath a lavish shrine. This monument to his memory, initiated by his son Alexander III, was not completed until the reign of Nicholas II. It is decorated with marble, with semi-precious stones, and of most interest to the mosaicist, it has — at 7,050 square metres — what may be the largest mosaic cycle in the world.

The building has a fascinating history. Like many other churches, it was closed down following the Revolution. In 1931 it opened briefly as a Museum of the People’s Will, celebrating the event leading to its foundation. It was closed again three years later, reportedly on the orders of Stalin, who was beginning to doubt the wisdom of  commemorating acts of terror, fearing an attack on himself. The church might have been demolished, but warehouse space in the city was in scarce supply, and it was reprieved on this basis. Used to house unburied corpses during the 900 terrible days of the Siege of Leningrad,  after the war it became a vegetable store, and won the nickname ‘Our Saviour on Potatoes’. It gained a preservation order in 1969 and has now been restored and opened as a mosaic museum.

The mosaics were made by the Frolov Workshops — famous exponents of the ‘indirect method’. Fittingly, they are both magnificent and frightful.

Posted under: History, Mosaic by Emma Biggs