Transfiguration Cathedral

Located next to a beautiful square on Preobrazhenskaya Ploschad, just off Liteiny Prospect, the Transfiguration Cathedral occupies an area that was once the home of the Russian Army's Transfiguration Regiment in St. Petersburg.

On the night of the 24th November 1741, Peter the Great's daughter Elizabeth came to gain support from the soldier's regiment for a coup against Empress Ann and her appointed successor Ivan, who at the time was 2 months old.

As a sign of gratitude, Empress Elizabeth commissioned the construction of a church after her accession to the throne on the 7th December 1741. Mikhail Zemstov was commissioned as architect to design and build the church, but construction was actually carried out by Antonio Trezzini after the sudden death of Mikhail. Construction began in St. Petersburg on the 9th June 1743 when Empress Elizabeth laid the first stone of the foundation. On the 5th August 1754, on the eve of the Feast of Transfiguration, the church was consecrated and declared a Cathedral by order of Empress Elizabeth.

The Cathedral's interior, including the marvelous gold iconostasis and altar vestibule were designed by Bartolomeo Rastrelli. This iconostasis was rescued from a fire that almost burnt down the Transfiguration Cathedral on August 8th, 1825. Construction of a new church on the site in St. Petersburg began in 1827 designed by Vasily Stasov and was consecrated on 5th August 1829.

According to Stasov's plan a beautiful square was laid out around the new church in 1830. An amazing fence constructed from bronze canon trunks set on granite foundations for posts and linked with fat iron chains, surrounded the square. Each of the posts, which consisted of three canons were topped off with a crowned gold two-headed eagle on the central canon. Apart from the eagles being removed after the revolution, the fence remains almost intact to this day.

Around the cathedral were arranged twelve historic cannons on gun carriages. These canons were once given to Poland by Nicholas I in memory of King Stanislav and Polish soldiers who died in a battle outside Varna when these canons were used by the Transfiguration regiment to repel the Turks. However, these canons were taken back by the Russians using force in 1831, after they were used against the Russian Army during the uprising.

The Cathedral managed to remain open after the revolution and is one of the most visited of all the Cathedrals in St. Petersburg.