Kazan Cathedral

The original Kazan Cathedral was founded on this site at the northern end of Red Square in 1636 in thanks for the 1612 expulsion of Polish invaders (for two centuries it housed the Virgin of Kazan icon, which supposedly helped to rout the Poles). From here, the archpriest Avvakum Petrov led the opposition against Patriarch Nikon’s 17th-century reforms of the Russian Orthodox Church, thus starting the separatist Old Believers’ movement. Three hundred years later, the cathedral was completely demolished, allegedly because it impeded the flow of celebrating workers in May Day and Revolution Day parades. The little church that occupies the site today is a 1993 replica.