Smolny Cathedral

Smolny Cathedral, on the east bend of the Neva away from the main tourist circuit, is the masterpiece of Bartolomeo Rastrelli — the architect who also gave St Petersburg the Winter Palace, the Catherine Palace, and the Stroganov Palace. The exterior is dazzling pale blue and white, with the five domes clustered tightly around the central drum like a Russian Orthodox church compressed into baroque form. The interior is comparatively spare, the ornate Rastrelli iconostasis having been removed in the Soviet period.

The bell tower observation deck — actually the topmost level of the cathedral itself, since the planned freestanding tower was never built — is open to climb for one of the best views in the city. The surrounding Smolny Convent buildings now house a university; the Smolny Institute next door was the headquarters of the Bolsheviks during the October Revolution and Lenin's first base of operations after seizing power.

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A story
Smolny was begun in 1748 for Tsarina Elizabeth, who planned to retire here as a nun. Rastrelli's design called for a bell tower 140 metres tall — taller than anything anywhere in the city — but Elizabeth's death halted construction and the bell tower was never built. The cathedral was finally finished by Vasily Stasov in 1835, almost a century after Rastrelli started, and it remains the most exuberant baroque building in Russia.