St. Petersburg Part 4 - Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood

Built by Alexander III in the late 19th Century as a memorial to his father who died on the site a few years earlier, the Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood is one of western Russia's most beautiful structures.   It has the largest collection of mosaics inside it's walls than any other church in the world (80,000 square feet).   So much so, that it's often called the Museum of Mosaic. 

Architecturally, the Cathedral differs from St. Petersburg's other structures. The city's architecture is predominantly Baroque and Neoclassical, but the Savior on Blood harks back to medieval Russian architecture in the spirit of romantic nationalism.  It intentionally resembles the 17th-century Yaroslavl churches and of course, the celebrated St. Basil's Cathedral in Mosocw (if you squint really closely, and throw back about 4 shots of vodka. the two really do look alike.