Peter and Paul Cathedral, Eastern Orthodox cathedral in Petrogradsky District, Saint Petersburg, Russia
Peter and Paul Cathedral is a basilica-plan church of Petrine Baroque design, 61 meters long and 27.5 meters wide, with a yellow-painted facade and white trim. Its multi-tiered bell tower rises in stacked sections with arched openings and a clock face, topped by a slender gilded spire with an angel holding a cross. A smaller gilded cupola stands to the side.
Peter the Great founded the fortress in 1703 and had a wooden church consecrated there in April 1704; the stone cathedral was begun on 30 May 1712 to Domenico Trezzini's design, with the bell tower built first. Work finished only in 1733, after Peter's death, and the 122.5 m tower remained St. Petersburg's tallest building until 1962.
The cathedral holds the tombs of nearly every Russian emperor from Peter the Great to Nicholas II, whose remains were interred in July 1998; only Peter II and Ivan VI lie elsewhere. In 2006 Empress Maria Feodorovna, mother of Nicholas II, was reburied here beside her husband Alexander III, as she had wished. Sunday and feast-day services resumed in 2000, and the first Easter liturgy since 1917 was held in 2008.
The bell tower serves as a viewing platform where guided excursions meet every hour from 12:00 to 18:00. The cathedral stands inside the Peter and Paul Fortress on Hare Island, reached on foot from Gorkovskaya metro station.
In 1997, workers cleaning the angel on the spire found a bottle sealed in a fold of its gown; inside, restorers from 1953 apologized for rushed, shoddy work done for the city's 250th anniversary. The 1997 team is said to have left a reply, never made public.
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