French Reformed Church, Reformed church in Saint Petersburg, Russia.
The French Reformed Church at Bolshaya Konyushennaya Street 25 is a former Reformed church rebuilt in 1839–1840 by architect G. A. Bosse, with a facade later reworked in the Neo-Renaissance style by Yu. O. Dutel. The building stands along the street line and has a flat dome topped with a golden cross.
French Reformed Protestants separated from the German community in 1724 and bought a plot on Bolshaya Konyushennaya in 1728, where a wooden church was consecrated in 1731 and destroyed by fire in 1762. The stone church by Yury Felten was consecrated on 22 December 1772. Georg Bosse rebuilt it in 1839–1840, and in 1858 Yulius Dutel gave the facade its neo-Renaissance look.
The building has housed the M. I. Chigorin City Chess Club since 1937; world champions Emanuel Lasker and José Raúl Capablanca played here, and Mikhail Botvinnik, Boris Spassky and Anatoly Karpov were members. The same address holds the Pyshechnaya at Zhelyabova 25, listed in the Red Book of Memorable Places of Petersburg, where the range and recipes for coffee and doughnuts have not changed in fifty years.
The church is open to visitors during regularly scheduled services and cultural events held throughout the week. It helps to check ahead of time what activities are planned so you can visit when the building is actively in use.
Since 1937 the building has housed the City Chess Club named after M. I. Chigorin. World champions Emanuel Lasker and José Raúl Capablanca played in its rooms, and Mikhail Botvinnik, Boris Spassky and Anatoly Karpov were members. The same address also holds the Pyshechnaya at Zhelyabova 25, whose coffee and doughnuts have kept the same recipes for over 50 years.
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