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It’s not only the largest cathedral in St. Petersburg, but the largest one in the whole country and the forth-largest domed cathedral in the world. It’s the first monument the traveller sees of the city when arriving by ship or plane. The church can hold up to 14.000 people! It was designed by the French architect Montferran and it took 40 years to build it. 100 kg (220 pounds) of pure gold was used to guilt the main dome.
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The interior is lavishly decorated with many semi precious stones and mosaics. Have you ever seen columns made of malachite or lapis lazuli? I think not, because usually these stones are used for jewelry, but here they were used for huge columns.
During Soviet period this building was used for antireligious museum, now it works as a museum (not antireligious, just to see the architecture of the building) but at the same time it’s a church in operation. For extra price you will have a possibility to go to the colonnade (the upper balustrade), where you will get an excellent view of the city.
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A short tour of St. Isaac’s Cathedral, which is usually a part of general city tour, will take around 30 min and you will see just the interior of the Cathedral. The full tour with the colonnade will take 1 hour. More information about St. Isaac’s Cathedral you can find on
the official cite of the museum.
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