Description of the attraction
Nicholas Church is one of the most beautiful buildings in Kiev, erected at the beginning of the twentieth century. And although the classical Gothic forms were displayed in the church, nevertheless, this is a completely modern building, built using technologies that were new for that time. In particular, it was here for the first time that rammed concrete piles were used.
The church was founded in the summer of 1899 after an intercession of Kiev Catholics with a request to celebrate the visit of Emperor Nicholas II. In this original way, a compromise was found. In fact, the reason for the construction of the church was more prosaic - the 40,000-strong community of Catholics in Kiev, the Alexander Church alone was simply not enough at that time.
The church was built for ten years exclusively with private funds. In total, about half a million rubles were spent on the construction - a huge amount at that time. The history of the creation of the project of the Nikolaev Church is interesting: it was invented by Stanislav Volovsky, who at that time was just a student. Naturally, the young man lacked experience, the project was finalized by the famous Kiev architect Vladislav Gorodetsky. The lengthy construction of the temple was explained by inconvenient geological conditions - the soil was too weak to support such a majestic building, it was for this reason that the soil was strengthened with piles.
The consecration of the temple, which almost immediately fell into the category of architectural masterpieces, was carried out in December 1909. However, it did not manage to fulfill its main functions for long - during the revolution it was closed, and later the regional archive was placed in the church. Life began to return to the Nicholas Church only in 1980, when, after restoration, a chamber and organ music hall was opened in it, having specially designed a large organ for this.
