Description of the attraction
Cathedral of the Kazan Icon of the Mother of God on Red Square - was completely destroyed in 1936, in accordance with the plan of Stalin's reconstruction of Moscow. On the site of the blown up church, a pavilion was built in honor of the Third International, designed by the architect Boris Iofan.
The first mention of the Kazan Church dates back to 1625. The wooden church was erected at the expense of Dmitry Pozharsky in honor of the liberation of Moscow from the Polish-Lithuanian invaders. After a fire in 1632, four years later, a stone church was built on the site of a burnt wooden one. The funds for the construction were donated by Tsar Mikhail Fedorovich. In 1647, a side-altar was added to the temple in honor of the Kazan miracle workers Guria and Varsonofy. At the beginning of the 17th century, a bell tower with a hipped roof was added to the temple. This small temple has become one of the most important in Moscow.
In the 1760s, the temple was reconstructed with funds donated by Princess M. Dolgorukova. During the work, due to the dilapidated state of the temple, the chapel was demolished. In 1802, at the direction of Metropolitan Platon, the tent-roofed bell tower was dismantled. In 1805, a two-tiered bell tower was built on the new site. Later, in 1865, it became three-tiered. And in 1936 the temple was blown up …
The existing cathedral was completely recreated in its original form in 1990-1993. The initiator was the Moscow city branch of the All-Russian Society for the Protection of Monuments. Collection of donations for the revival of the temple began in 1989. The rest of the money for the construction was allocated by the Moscow Government. The author of the project is the architect O. Zhurin.
Reconstruction of the historical appearance of the temple became possible thanks to the surviving measurements made by the architect P. Baranovsky shortly before the destruction of the temple, as well as the scientific research of the historian S. Smirnov.
