Cathedral of Christ the Saviour

This gargantuan cathedral now dominates the skyline along the Moscow River. It sits on the site of an earlier and similar church of the same name, built between 1839 and 1860, and finally consecrated in 1883. The church commemorates Russia’s victory over Napoleon. The original was destroyed during Stalin’s orgy of explosive secularism. Stalin planned to replace the church with a 315m-high Palace of Soviets (including a 100m-high statue of Lenin), but the project never got off the ground – literally. Instead, for 50 years the site served an important purpose: the world’s largest swimming pool. This time around, the church was completed in a mere two years, in time for Moscow’s 850th birthday in 1997, and at an estimated cost of US$350 million. It is amazingly opulent, garishly grandiose and truly historic. Much of the work was done by Mayor Luzhkov’s favourite architect Zurab Tsereteli and it has aroused a range of reactions from Muscovites, from pious devotion to abject horror. Its sheer size and splendour guarantee its role as a love-it-or-hate-it landmark and spark of controversy. Muscovites should at least be grateful they can admire the shiny domes of a church instead of the shiny dome of Lenin’s head.