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| Church of Spilled Blood in St Petersburg |
Original Painting by Stanley Port
Acrylic on canvas 45 x 60 cm |
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This church was built on the spot where Tsar Alexander II was assasinated in 1881. Alexander III set up a competition
for the design, which had to be of a 'purely Russian style of 17th century'. Alfred Parland, a Russian, won and
work commenced in 1883 and took nearly 25 years to complete. It is a breathtaking spectacle situated on the
Kanal Griboyedova. Some of Lenin's friends wanted to demolish this monument to Tsarism, and it has been just
a warehouse for much of its life. After that it housed the 'Museum of the People's Will' to commemorate the
terrorist act that founded the building. Stalin then closed it and it is now reopened as a museum rather than a church.
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