Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XIV.djvu/575

 SAINT PETERSBURG 551 spective, the Gorokhovaya Ulitza or Peas street, and the Voskresenski Prospekt or Resurrec- tion perspective. The Neva perspective, 130 ft. broad and about 4 m. long, is one of the finest streets in Europe. It contains the" cathedral of Our Lady of Kazan, pro- fusely adorned with sil- ver, gold, and gems, but without much architec- tural merit, and anoth- er Greek church, both with their blue domes decorated with stars ; a Dutch church, a Protes- tant German church, a Catholic and an Arme- nian church, all costly and some of them very beautiful. Here too are the military headquar- ters, the palace of the archduke Michael, the great bazaar with its 10,000 merchants, the institution of St. Catharine, and a theatre. At the end of this street and near the city limits are the convent and church of St. Alexander Nevskoi, the latter containing a sarcophagus the citadel, with a tall, slender, richly gilt spire, 208 ft. high, which can be seen from all parts of the city or its suburbs, contains the The Isaac Church. of pure silver in which the body of the saint is preserved, and the palace of the metropoli- tan. The church of St. Peter and St. Paul in Winter Palace. remains of all the Russian monarchs since Peter the Great. The Isaac church, S. W. of the admiralty, in one of the largest open spaces of the capital, is celebrated for its simple but grand architecture, its noble proportions, and its imposing porches. Like the Greek churches gen- erally, it is in the form of a Greek cross, and has four grand entrances, each approached by three broad flights of steps, each entire flight com- posed of a single piece of granite. Each entrance has a superb peristyle composed of monolithic columns of polished gran- ite, each 60 ft. high and 7 ft. in diameter, and the whole surmounted by a cupola 120 ft. above the peristyles, covered with copper and richly gilt, and resting on 30 granite pillars. The foundation of this church, formed of several successive tiers of piles, is said to have cost $4,000,000. The church of the Smolnoi convent, in the N. E. part of the peninsula, is of white marble, and is surmounted by five blue domes spangled with golden stars. The Preobrazhenskaya church belongs to one of the oldest regiments of the guards, and is profusely decorated with-