This marvelous Old Russian-style church was built on the spot where Emperor Alexander II was assassinated on March 1, 1881. Built in 1883-1907 (chief architect Alfred Parland), the church was designed in the spirit of 16th and 17th-century Russian architecture, inspired particularly by St. Basil’s Cathedral on Red Square in Moscow.

The interior of the church, a memorial to the late Emperor Alexander II, was decorated with different marbles and several thousand square yards of mosaics. After the October Revolution of 1917 the church met the sad fate of most churches in the country. Now it has been restored and reopened to visitors. The more than 7500 sq. meters of mosaics link Alexander II’s murder with the crucifixion.

The church has an outstanding and varied collection of mosaic icons. Several icons were completed in the traditions of academic painting, modernist style and Byzantine icon painting. The large icon of St. Alexander Nevsky was created according to a design by Nesterov. The icons of the main iconostasis Mother of God with Child and the Savior were painted to designs by Vasnetsov. The mosaic panel Pantokrator (Almighty) which depicts Christ giving a blessing with his right hand and holding the gospels in his left, in the platform of the central cupola was painted according to a design by N. Kharlamov. Parland and Andrey Ryabushkin completed the framed icon mosaic ornaments.