The Alexander Nevsky Church is a Russian Orthodox church built in 1887, one of the more unexpected buildings in this predominantly Muslim city. The church dates from the period of Russian imperial administration, when a substantial Russian and Armenian population lived in Ganca, and it serves as a reminder of the city's former ethnic and religious diversity.
Most of the Christian population — Russians, Armenians, and the ethnic Germans who came in the nineteenth century — left after the Soviet collapse, and the church is now used as a puppet theatre, making it one of the more unusual ecclesiastical repurposings in the Caucasus. The exterior is fully visible from the street and worth a photograph; the theatre occasionally performs.