Destruction of Christ the Saviour Cathedral

[Brycik]

A link to some official photographs of the destuction by the communists of a magnificent cathedral in Moscow

http://englishrussia.com/2012/09/04/done-away-with-the-opium/#more-109843

The English Russia site often has photos of pre revolutionary Russia

[Vecchiolarry]

Hi,

It is absolutely horrible to see the destruction of a beautiful building, especially on purpose.

Larry

[Rodney_G.]

Hi,

It is absolutely horrible to see the destruction of a beautiful building, especially on purpose.

Larry

True, Larry. And for that reason, everyone should look at every one of those pictures and understand what Soviet Communism meant, what it was, what it intended, what it did

[JamesAPrattIII]

The communists destroyed churchs by the thousands during their rule. I understand there are many Russians today who are disgusted by this. i also have read that in the non-Russian parts of the USSR the people did a better job of saving their churchs mosques ect. From what I have also read many of the artifacts saved from these churchs were sold abroad to finance the Soviet industrial expansion of the 1920s and 1930s. of course alot of this effort was trying to get the Tsarist era factories working again. Also gold mined in Siberia by slave labor that Stalin kept track of in a little notebook he carried around helped do this. Then there was Alexandra's massive jewelry that the communists recovered. no doubt part of this was also sold for this purpose.

[Petr]

A few interesting facts about the Cathedral. It was built to commemorate the victory over Napoleon and paid for with public subscriptions (truly a "peoples palace"). The leading artists of the day contributed to the iconography and building decorations. The soviets intended to build a "peoples palace" with a gigantic statue glorifying the new "Soviet Man". Each time they tried to commence construction the foundations collapsed. It finally ended up as a swimming pool until the construction of the new Cathedral.   

[Vecchiolarry]

Hi,

The destruction of this edifice then is 100 times, no 1000 times, more inconsiderate and insulting as it was built with people's hard earned money...
What a slap in the face to the citizens, who already considered it a "People's" edifice...

Larry