Cathedral of Christ the Saviour (Samara)

Cathedral of Christ the Saviour was a cathedral of the Samara diocese of the Russian Orthodox Church, located in Samara. The cathedral could hold 2,500 people and was built in 1869-1894 in the neo-Byzantine style, which, according to some experts, became the prototype for several Orthodox churches: five-domed with a high bell tower, combining the characteristic features of Byzantine and Russian architectural styles. The construction was funded by donations from the inhabitants of the province, mainly merchants, as well as the city of Samara. It served as the burial vault of the bishops of Samara.
It was also the cathedral of the Samara diocese from the moment of consecration in 1894 until 1928, when the cathedral came under the control of the Renovationism movement and its functions were moved. In 1930, the cathedral was closed, the projects to repurpose the building as a cultural center were rejected, and the church began to be dismantled, including by use of explosives, for building materials. By mid-1932 the cathedral was destroyed; a few years later a house of culture was built in its place, where the Samara Opera and Ballet Theatre is now located.
At the beginning of the 21st century, several church and political leaders of the Samara region came up with the idea of restoring the cathedral to its former place, but the proposal did not find support from the authorities and experts in the field of architecture.
In 1851 the Samara diocese was established. The first bishop of Samara, Eusebius (Orlinsky), upon his arrival in the city, decided that the cathedral of the new diocese would be the Church of the Ascension [ru]. However, finding the building incompatible with its new status, the bishop proposed building a new cathedral. The project was supported, and already in 1853 on the general site plan of Samara approved by Nicholas I the place for the future construction was indicated. The chosen site was atop a hill so that the cathedral would dominate the city. The general plan assumed that the cathedral would be located in the center of the city, but Samara grew slowly, and for several decades the future cathedral square was on the very outskirts of the city. In 1887 the publicist and literary critic N. V. Shelgunov wrote: "In Samara they are building the cathedral almost on the outskirts (the enormous cathedral stands on a huge square, more like a steppe), they are building a theater outside the city, apparently expecting that the center will be there in time. And the city seems to want to keep expanding for a long time to come."
However, for a long time, Samara could not find the money to begin construction. Repeated appeals by the Samara clergy to the authorities about the necessity of building a new cathedral remained unanswered. Only after 13 years, in 1866, the case was given a chance under the following circumstances. Another petition of the Samara bishop Gerasim (Dobroserdov) was sent on April 4, 1866. Coincidentally, on the same day there was an unsuccessful assassination attempt on Emperor Alexander II, by Dmitry Karakozov, after which a wave of patriotic and monarchist demonstrations and actions swept the country. On the initiative of the governor of Samara B. P. Obukhov, the Samara City Council unanimously adopted a loyal appeal to the Emperor:
The supreme permission for this petition followed on April 9, and on April 17, 1866, the birthday of Alexander II, in the presence of the governor, Gerasim went with a procession to the place chosen for construction and consecrated it.
Immediately after the consecration of the site for the temple, the collection of donations for its construction began. The beginning was made by the Samara city society, which contributed 15 thousand rubles. There was opened a subscription on the whole territory of Samara province, thanks to which in May 1869 already 39 thousand rubles were collected.
For further fundraising and work a special building committee was formed under the chairmanship of Bishop Gerasimos and Governor B. P. Obukhov V. Bureev, merchants E. N. Shikhobalov, P. M. Zhuravlevlev, I. M. Pleshanov, A. M. Gorbunov, A. E. Nadyssev, protoiereus Khalkolivanov, collegiate councillor A. A. Gromov, provincial architect M. D. Muratov and cathedral clergyman archpriest Krotkov. Later, after the withdrawal of its treasurer I. M. Pleshanov from the committee, this position was held by the provincial marshal of Nobility A. N. Chemodurov, and later by the mayor M. I. Nazarov, and with the change of the leadership of the province the co-chairman became the new governor G.S. Aksakov.
At the same time, the site for the cathedral square was cleared and the design of the future cathedral was prepared. In May 1866, the governor ordered the clearing of the entire area to be built according to the general plan of 1853. It turned out that four residential districts of the city, where 102 homesteads were located, were to be allocated for the cathedral. According to the decision of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, 47 owners of plots were given land in other places, 18 owners received monetary compensation. Another 37 owners, it turned out, had received similar compensation earlier, but since many of them continued to live in the same place, they were evicted. There were also examples of the opposite: a famous Samara philanthropist, merchant I. M. Pleshanov donated the land he owned, and also bought and donated several other plots of land in the neighborhood which had belonged to low-income citizens.
Originally it was planned to build a temple in the image of the recently completed cathedral in Vyatka [ru]. For detailed acquaintance with the temple and acquisition of its drawings in Vyatka was sent by provincial architect M. D. Muratov. However, the Samara City Society considered his project unsuitable: the size of the Vyatka temple did not meet the expected needs of Samara. The architect was offered to double the size of the temple, but the new project did not satisfy either the community or the emperor personally, as it "did not withstand artistic criticism". Alexander II instructed the Ministry of Internal Affairs to develop the project of the future temple, which for this purpose attracted St. Petersburg professor of architecture E. I. Gibert. Gibert developed a plan for a one-story temple with a capacity of up to 2,500 people, which was approved by the emperor on April 11, 1869.
On May 25, 1869, on the day of the second anniversary of another assassination attempt on Alexander II, after the prayer service in the Iveron Monastery of the Theotokos [ru] in the presence of the new governor of Samara G. S. Aksakov and the mayor of Samara V. E. Bureyev, the solemn laying of the temple took place.
The building committee started the production of bricks in a factory built for that purpose on the municipal territory, removed the municipal quarries of rubble stone, which were provided by the city free of charge, and carried out the excavation works for the laying of the foundation of the temple, during which about 1900 cubic centimeters of earth were excavated. The committee assigned the supervision of the construction to one of its members, the provincial architect M. D. Muratov, but in 1870 Muratov was appointed to another province and left the supervision of the construction of the cathedral, having time only to prepare the foundation.
In 1871 in Samara a new city ordinance was approved: according to it, since February of that year, the construction of the temple was under the jurisdiction of the newly created city duma. On May 18, 1871 the Duma elected a special commission, which was given the task "to independently manage the construction of the temple, to take all measures allowed by law to increase the construction capital, — to collect voluntary donations".
The Duma appointed the merchants E. N. Shikhobalov, A. M. Gorbunov, I. M. Pleshanov, P. M. Zhuravlev, and A. N. Shikhobalov as the builders of the cathedral, but in reality, for a long time only E. N. Shikhobalov worked, who in 1872-1882 was additionally assisted by the merchant F. E. Kolodin. The other members of the committee contributed to the construction mainly by collecting the necessary funds. After the death of E. N. Shikhobalov on October 7, 1888, the city council entrusted A. N. Shikhobalov with the task of continuing the construction. A. N. Shikhobalov was assigned to assist P. M. Zhuravlev. M. Zhuravlev, G. I. Kurlin, I. M. Pleshanov and D. V. Kirilov. However, Zhuravlev, Pleshanov, and Kirilov due to illness refused to take on such duties, as a result, the construction of the temple was completed by the committee chaired by the mayor P. V. Alabin. V. Alabin, consisting of A. N. Shikhobalov and G. I. Kurlin.
During the transfer of the construction of the church to the city council also 417 rubles in cash, 1,227,155 bricks, rubble, hewn plinth, stepped plinth, three brick sheds, but most importantly — the foundation of the cathedral was ready. It was laid in a continuous mass, but in it, there were placed inverted arches, which were not specified in the original project. The peculiarities of the ground were not studied, and already during the construction, it became clear that the sandy ground required this kind of additional reinforcement. The arches formed a burial vault, that later allowed the arrangement of a special temple with an underground tomb in the lower part of the building.
By the decision of the Duma, the city architect Teplov became the new supervising architect of the construction, who was entitled to a salary increase of 1,000 rubles per year for carrying out this task. However, Teplov was in office only until May 1873. He was successively replaced by architects N. Y. Marfin (until March 1877), Y. K. Bem (until March 1878), L. A. Reder (until October 1879), civil engineer Y. V. Krivtsov (from November 1879 to June 1881), provincial architect A. I. Fedorov. The architects involved in the supervision were not always diligent in the additional tasks assigned to them and usually had many other projects and cases.
The construction of the cathedral proceeded slowly and was interrupted during winter. This had a positive effect on the quality of the construction: the erected parts of the building dried and settled well; the masonry was strengthened with mortar almost to a monolithic state.
On August 29, 1871 Emperor Alexander II visited Samara and the construction of the cathedral, and laid a stone in the church under construction. Stones were also laid by Tsesarevich Alexander Alexandrovich and Grand Duke Vladimir Alexandrovich. Then these three stones were covered with glass and placed in a bronze frame. Next to them in a special ark were kept the tools used by the emperor and his sons when laying the stones.
In 1882, by order of the Ministry of the Internal Affairs, construction was suspended to inspect the cathedral's structure, since "such a monumental matter requires great care". A commission composed of representatives of the provincial government's building department, the city mayor, the cathedral's builders, and the city engineer inspected the structure and drew up a report that concluded that the work had been carried out satisfactorily, with only a few irregularities in the projections and corners that did not affect the building's resistance. However, thirteen years after the beginning of the construction, it was noted that there was no system to the construction, and it was necessary to have a permanent architect who would make detailed drawings of the cathedral and make the necessary mathematical calculations of its stability.
It was decided to continue the construction only of those parts of the cathedral that did not significantly affect overall building stability. In 1883, the provincial architect Fedorov left the supervision of the construction, and in August of the same year, the city architect and civil engineer K. D. Gordeyev took his place. He made a mathematical calculation of the degree of stability of the structure, but the city government appealed to the director of the Institute of Civil Engineers Berngard with a request to recheck the calculations and inspect the construction, but he refused such work.
By that time the construction had reached the base of the main dome tholobate, and the vaults covering the cathedral had been demolished even earlier, in 1883-1884. Everyone recognized the need to check the stability of the already built parts of the temple and their strength, especially the pylons under the main dome, before erecting the dome. The situation was complicated by conflicts between the supervising architects and the builder Markov, who, disregarding their authority, simply ignored their demands and acted completely independently. Only rarely did the architects manage to insist on the necessity of following the approved plan.
Once again the government turned to Professor Gibert, at an additional cost of 3,100 rubles. He inspected the cathedral and at the end of May 1885 presented the results of his research at the meeting of the city council. According to his conclusion, the lack of proper architectural supervision led to the temple being built without the study of soil properties, without calculations of stability and strength of parts of the building and even without working drawings, guided by the only approved project. Nevertheless, both the building and the foundation were built correctly and solidly, the masonry was done with complete accuracy by a true master of his craft, even in the absence of the necessary detailed drawings. Fears of possible instability or fragility of the already-built part of the temple were unfounded. However, the seriousness of the construction meant that the architect had to be present at all times. Gibert found it possible to continue the construction under the supervision of local architects and also offered to deliver to St. Petersburg detailed construction drawings and samples of building materials used in the construction of the cathedral so that he could examine their quality and perform the necessary mathematical calculations.
After that speech, construction continued on May 30, 1885. The architect Stanek made detailed drawings and sent them to Gibert, who in March 1886 sent his mathematical calculations and recommendations on the measures necessary to complete the construction. On August 13, 1886, the bell tower of the cathedral, 35 fathoms high, was completed. On August 30, 1886, the day of celebration of the 300th anniversary of Samara, the clergy of Samara with crosses and khorugves made a procession from the existing Cathedral of the Assumption to the church under construction, where a prayer service was held and the bell tower was sprinkled with holy water.
In 1887, after another construction survey by the construction department of the provincial administration, the construction of the main dome began. For this purpose, a special machine for the production of hollow bricks and a master were sent from Moscow. For the construction of the main dome up to 35,000 such bricks were needed. On August 6, 1887, the dome was completed and on October 22 the cross was consecrated by Bishop Seraphim [ru]. The bronze gilded crosses for the main dome and the bell tower were made in Moscow by the partnership of A.M. Postnikov. The cross of the main dome was 9 arashes high, 6 arashes wide, 3 inches thick, and cost 2,920 rubles. The cross on the bell tower was half an inch thinner and cost 2,800 rubles.
In September 1888, the architect supervising the construction was changed again, and technician I. P. Kuroedov took on its responsibilities temporarily. The city administration worked on a complete plan of the cathedral, its interior plastering, heating system, ventilation, and windows in the main dome. At the request of the city authorities Professor Gibert made the plan of the interior decoration of the cathedral, the heating and ventilation were made by the partnership of Professor Lukashevich. The plan developed by Lukashevich was recognized as expedient and feasible, but expensive, so it was bought for 500 rubles and entrusted to the merchant Kremnev, who agreed to equip the heating and ventilation for 19,000 rubles. Gibert prepared two projects for the interior decoration of the temple with iconostases and submitted them to the city council with explanatory notes, cost estimates, and pictorial sketches. According to a member of the building commission, the city mayor of Samara—P. V. Alabin—both projects were good and it was difficult to choose the best one. One of them was designed in the pure Byzantine style: the interior of the temple was proposed to cover the images of sacred events, icons, ornaments, and inscriptions on a golden background. Another project was made in light colors, giving the impression of "something fresh, alive". The walls and other interior parts of the temple were to be covered with reliefs, and the iconostasis was to be made of maiolica. Gibert also presented two versions of the interior decoration and the lower church, made in the same style.
The commission for the construction of the temple decided on the Byzantine style and proposed this project for approval by the city council on March 28, 1889. Due to the high cost of the project, it was suggested that it should not be carried out at once, but in stages, as sufficient funds became available. It was proposed to start with the main elements of the project: the arrangement of iconostases and images of the four Evangelists in the sails of the main dome. In addition, the commission proposed to make some changes to the Gibert project: the carved gilded iconostasis was proposed to replace the majolica iconostasis, writing for it icons in the same Byzantine style, floors to make slab, except for the elevations in front of the iconostasis, which were to be finished with black and light marble.
P. V. Alabin, who presented to the Duma the considerations of the Construction Commission, also reported that some cracks had appeared in the two western pylons of the main dome. He sent a telegram to Professor Gibert, but he could not make any suggestions without a personal inspection. It was suggested that all major work be suspended until Gibert arrived. On April 9, 1889 Gibert came to Samara again, together with the city architect A. Scherbachev, he spent two days studying the damage to the building under construction, after which he gave the latter detailed instructions on what measures should be taken in case of damage, and also asked to make exact drawings and photographs of all such cracks, so that he could work out instructions to prevent similar ones in the future.
The city council was not satisfied with Gibert's conclusion and invited the cathedral engineer-architect Kilwein, who had repaired the damage in the cathedral under construction in Nizhny Novgorod, and possibly other experts at the discretion of the city council, to inspect. It was decided to suspend all further work on the cathedral until the conclusion of the construction-technical committee of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (all materials and expert opinions were submitted to this committee).
Their conclusions about the cracks were presented by the construction department of the provincial government: "the detected damage does not represent a serious danger"; engineer-architect Kilwein: "V. I. Sherwood, the builder of the Historical Museum in Moscow, M. N. Chichagov, the author of many theater buildings, B. U. Savrimovich, the chief engineer of the Orenburg Railway, and several railway engineers—no one paid much attention to the cracks that appeared. On June 26, 1889, Alabin asked the governor to petition the construction and technical committee of the Ministry of Interior to continue the construction, the Ministry of Interior agreed to send a specialist to Samara, but since in 1889 no more work was to be done on the cathedral, and no funds were provided for it, at the request of the city council the inspection of the Ministry of Interior was postponed until 1890.
In the spring of 1890, the cathedral was again inspected by the local building department, which found that all the damage remained the same size. Upon his arrival in Samara, Privy Councillor K. Y. Maevsky, having carefully inspected the construction of the cathedral, examined the condition of the iron links, the internal masonry of the pylons, 162 beacons made on the damage, determined the settlement of parts of the building, concluded that there was no danger in continuing the construction, but it should be entrusted to an experienced architect. The city council invited the architect A. A. Shcherbachev for this work for a special fee; he held this post until the end of the construction of the cathedral.
The death of the Samara Bishop Seraphim on January 11, 1891, who was buried in the tomb under the lower church of the unfinished cathedral, contributed to the acceleration of the work on the completion of the cathedral. The city authorities decided to immediately begin the completion of the lower church, which did not require large expenses, and the plan for the arrangement of the ventilation and heating also provided for the possibility of their arrangement only in the lower church. It was expected that by the anniversary of the death of Eminence Seraphim, it would be possible to celebrate the Requiem Liturgy over his tomb.
Scherbachev designed the iconostasis of the lower church, which master Bychkov quickly made of light and dark oak, with gilding and carving. The floors were covered with Zhigulyov limestone, the walls were whitewashed but not painted, and they were temporarily covered with icons bought and donated to the cathedral, which numbered more than 200, including 12 large ones. On the bell tower were installed 8 bells with a total weight of 250 poods, made by a local manufacturer Buslaev. The church utensils were acquired partly by donations, partly by purchase. The icons for the iconostasis were painted on zinc in the workshop of Sidorsky in St. Petersburg, and the icon of St. Alexis the Metropolitan of Moscow was painted by order of the governor A. D. Sverbeyev by Grigory Zhuravlev, a peasant from the village of Utyovka, who was born without arms and legs but painted pictures holding a brush in his teeth. On January 7, 1892, Bishop Vladimir (Bogoyavlensky) of Samara and Stavropol consecrated the lower church in the name of St. Alexis, Metropolitan of Kiev, the patron saint of Samara. Over the tomb of His Eminence Seraphim was erected a large icon of the Mother of God Three Joys in a silver frame, bequeathed by the deceased.
However, the city did not have enough money to complete the upper temple according to Gibert's designs. According to rough estimates, to complete the temple and provide it with everything necessary for worship, one project required up to 240,000 rubles, and another — up to 325,000 rubles. The city was affected by the cholera epidemic, famine and other disasters, such an amount could not allocate, so its budget was undermined. The new mayor N. G. Neklutin, who headed the fundraising committee, organized a subscription, which allowed to collect up to 100,000 rubles, as well as a large bell weighing 880 poods and costing up to 19,000 rubles. The bell "Blagovest" was cast in the Finlandsky factory in Moscow at the expense of D. V. Kirilov in memory of the rescue of the Imperial family from a railway accident on October 17, 1888, and was installed on the bell tower in October 1893.
With the funds collected and donated by the Duma, the floors of the temple were laid, and the vestibules and stairs were made of Zhigulyov's slabs. Master Belousov from Palekh was commissioned to paint the walls of the temple with biblical subjects, icons, and ornaments in the Byzantine style, as well as to write 102 icons for the iconostasis on wood, on a gold chased background with enamel borders —and for the high places— in the same style, but on zinc plates, according to detailed drawings and templates made by Scherbachev in the style of the Gibera project. Master Bychkov, also according to Scherbachev's drawings, made three lime wood, carved, gilded iconostases, with six of the same kliros, ten hanging kiosks on pylons, two iconostasis kiosks in the niches of the pylons, three altars with cypress boards, three worship altars and six analogion. Kazan craftsmen Loskutov and Budylin made five carved and polished exterior doors of mortared oak, three interior doors of pine, and four smaller doors, also carved, according to Shcherbachev's drawings. The church utensils were ordered in Moscow, some of them made of bronze gilded with enamel, some of them made of silver gilded with enamel. A large gilded bronze panikadil on eight chains, two small panikadils, vestments for three thrones with four gilded icons on each, a large gospel weighing 12 pounds were purchased. The metal grating of the choir and the iron vestments of the entrance doors were also made according to Shcherbachev's drawings.
On August 7, 1894, ten more gilded crosses were placed on the temple in addition to the three previously installed. Finally, the 25-year construction was completed. On August 30, 1894, the Bishop of Samara and Syzran Gury consecrated the main altar of the Cathedral in honor of the Resurrection of Christ. The right side-chapel was consecrated in honor of the Holy Prince Alexander Nevsky, the left side-chapel — in honor of the saints honored by the church on April 4 (some sources indicate a separate allocation of the monk Joseph the Songwriter among them). In the lower church, the altar was consecrated in the name of Metropolitan Alexis.
In different sources the cathedral was called differently: Resurrection Cathedral, Christ the Savior Cathedral or even by the name of the side chapel Alexander Nevsky Cathedral. The cathedral became the most famous religious building in the history of Samara.
The square in front of the temple was called Sobornaya Square (now Kuibyshev Square). A large garden grew around the cathedral, which became one of the favorite recreation places of the citizens.
According to Muratov's original estimate, 163,244 rubles were needed for the construction of the cathedral. The created building committee collected 45 624 rubles 75 kopecks for the years of its activity, of which 15 thousand rubles were contributed by the Samara Municipality. From this sum, 45 187 rubles and 75 kopecks were used. When the construction of the cathedral was transferred to the jurisdiction of the Samara City Duma, it took over the main costs of the construction. The budget financing allowed the uninterrupted progress of the construction, although at a low rate of construction.
The construction of the cathedral cost 517,906 rubles 7 kopecks, of which 145,797 rubles 12 kopecks were collected by voluntary donations, and the rest of the amount was contributed by the Samara City Duma from the city budget. Several contemporary sources estimate the cost of construction at one and a half million rubles, without specifying the source of the data.
In May 1901 the 50th anniversary of the Samara diocese was celebrated. Metropolitan Vladimir (Bogoyavlensky) of Moscow and Kolomna arrived for the anniversary: On May 14, he celebrated the liturgy in the cathedral.
In the summer of 1904, Emperor Nicholas II visited the cathedral. After reviewing the troops in Samara, he went to the cathedral in an open carriage, where he was met by the local clergy, led by Archbishop Constantine, who presented the emperor with several icons in memory of his visit to Samara, after which a prayer service was held. The emperor commented on the cathedral: "Your temple is good. I admired it from the window of the carriage".
In 1910, the 5th Alexandria Hussar Regiment was transferred to Samara. Until the regimental barracks on the outskirts of the city and the construction of the regimental church, the regiment was temporarily assigned the lower church of the cathedral for use as a regimental church. The same church was assigned and formed in 1910 189th Infantry Izmail Regiment, also did not have its own church building.
On January 14, 1918, in the Cathedral a memorial service was held for the members of the Constituent Assembly A. I. Shingarev and F. F. Kokoshkin, who were lynched, and a memorial service was held for the victims of the January Soviet attack on the Alexander Nevsky Lavra. On January 22, 1918, a citywide meeting of clergy and parish councils was held in the Cathedral. They decided to hold a three-day fast in the city (from January 25 to 27) with general confession and communion, and on January 28 it was decided to organize a nationwide procession.
In the spring of 1918, based on the Decree on Separation of Church and State, the building and all the property in it became "people's property". The capital was also withdrawn from the church administration: a total of 58,273 rubles was withdrawn from the Resurrection and Kazan Cathedrals of Samara. On June 8, 1918, Samara was occupied by detachments of the Czechoslovak Legion, the power was temporarily transferred to the Committee of Members of the Constituent Assembly (Komuch). On this occasion Bishop Michael held a thanksgiving service in the cathedral and blessed the creation of the People's Army.
In January 1919, the metric books were taken from the cathedral, as well as the capital in interest-bearing securities and savings books — 22,665 rubles.
In 1922, within the framework of the implementation of the Seizure of church valuables in Russia confiscated various church property for 2 poods 7 pounds 3 gold pieces 82 shares (according to A. G. Podmaritsyn 4 poods 31 pounds 37 gold pieces 27 shares, including the silver robes of the main throne - unique for Samara). In the seized valuables included and silver hammer and trowel, with which Alexander II and Alexander III laid stones in the wall of the temple, two crowns, silver, gilded, with enamel and relief images of the lining of the Gospel, two silver crosses, silver vessels, discos, asterisks, dish, silver dikirion and trikirion, altar lamps, chains, panagia, silver bishop's staff and other things. The confiscated items included items that had a liturgical purpose (chalices, discs, crosses), in this regard, March 10, 1922, in the Commission on the confiscation of church valuables appealed to the rector and churchwarden of the Cathedral with a request to replace confiscated from the temple of vessels on the riza of the icon of the Mother of God. This petition was granted and the request for the return of the crowns and the chalice was denied, although it was proposed to replace them with silver collected by the parishioners.
On September 1, 1924, the Cathedral Square was renamed the Municipal Square.
During the Renovationism the cathedral became one of the three Samara churches under the control of the Renewal archpriest. According to the memories of contemporaries, at that time there were almost no worshippers in the Cathedral even on major holidays, the Orthodox faithful went to other churches in the city. The continued control of the Renewalists over the Cathedral led to the fact that in 1928 Bishop Alexander moved his cathedra to the oldest church in Samara — the Transfiguration Cathedral, depriving the Church of the Resurrection of its cathedral status.
A little more than a year later the process of closing the cathedral began. First of all, on December 20, 1929, a meeting of the workers and employees of the Promstroi building yard was held, at which 110 people demanded that the cathedral building be handed over to the building workers' club. Sheets with hastily written surnames of the workers have been preserved. The next day, a similar meeting was held at the alabaster factory. Here, the collection of signatures was more organized: small sheets of paper were prepared and distributed to the workers, each of whom, as historians assume, wrote under dictation (since the text is almost identical) that he gave "a subscription to the taking away of the Cathedral for the Club of the Builders' Union", in what and "signed".
On January 2, 1930, the plenary session of the Presidium of the City Council made the following decision: "The Cathedral was handed over to the Union of Construction Workers to be rebuilt as the House of Culture of the Union of Construction Workers". The remaining property of the Cathedral was moved to the Pokrovsky Church, which was transferred to the Renewal community "The Living Church". On January 7, 1930 the regional department of the Union of Construction Workers created a commission of seven people to guide the drafting of a project to re-equip the building as a club. On January 15, the commission signed an agreement with a group of engineers and technicians headed by architect P. A. Shcherbachev, son of the last architect of the Cathedral, Alexander Shcherbachev, to prepare a draft project for the reconstruction of the Cathedral into a club of the Union of Construction Workers.
On January 25, 1930, the Cathedral was leased to the Regional Department of the Union of Construction Workers and became known as the "Palace of Culture". The lessee was obliged, at his own expense, to "re-equip and modify the bell tower, all the church decorations and figures reflecting religious rituals, and the interior furnishings for the transferred purpose, and to complete them by October 1, 1930". On February 6, work began on the removal of bells and crosses, which then for a long time simply lay on the Pryzbornaya Square, embarrassing the Orthodox citizens, so that it was necessary to appeal to the State Fund with a request to send a representative to receive the crosses immediately after their removal.
The Bell Tower was the highest point in the given area of the city, so the Samara Utility Trust proposed to install it as an expansion tank for the heat-generating parts of the city. The Union of Builders objected, pointing out that there was an order to leave the bell tower as the highest astronomical point without any internal changes, in addition, the massif of the bell tower at the main dome cracked under the pressure of hanging bells, which did not allow to load the bell tower.
The disputes ended on March 22, 1930, when in Moscow the Commission for the Construction of Clubs in the Social and Welfare Department of the Central Committee considered the project of transforming the Cathedral into a club inappropriate and suggested using it as a warehouse or archive. On April 18, 1930, in Samara in the Palace of Labor a final meeting of the commission to consider the project of transforming the Cathedral into a club was held, during which P. A. Shcherbachev again tried to defend the idea of transforming the Cathedral into a club, but without success.
On May 7, 1930, the city council passed a resolution:
"Volzhpromstroy" was ordered to begin the demolition of the cathedral for bricks "necessary for the construction of new facilities". The work on the destruction of the temple was supervised by M. M. Khatayevich, who headed the Central Volga regional party organization. It was planned that the destruction of the cathedral would cost 200 thousand rubles. In June 1930, the process of demolition began. Before the work began, valuable oak and pine doors, which were placed in the iron frames, were taken off the hinges and taken to the storehouse, but several doors were left near the cathedral, and broken bricks and various construction debris fell on them. The Srednevolzhskaya communa newspaper wrote about this fact, and only after such criticism the doors were lifted and taken away.
The masonry was strong, and even during manual dismantling with picks and crowbars, the bricks could hardly be kept intact. Piles of half bricks filled the area and were later used for "additional structures" — basement construction, foundations for the radio station building, and stoves for residential houses. There were daily reports on the amount of bricks received for the day, and it appeared that the manual dismantling was very slow. In addition, the work was poorly organized, there was a high turnover among the workers, the settlement with them was constantly delayed, and dozens of workers provided the accounting department with illiterate papers, which caused confusion and disorder. The production of bricks was only 8-10 thousand bricks per day.
As a result, it was decided to blow up the cathedral. To protect the nearby buildings: the House of the Red Army, the building of the Radio Station, and the temporary structures of the House of Industry, as well as to get more whole bricks and to ensure the timely removal of materials from the square, it was decided to blow it up in parts. The explosions were carried out at night, by the light of electric lanterns.
However, it was not possible to organize effective blasting at once. The letter of the management of the construction office No. 2 of Volzhpromstroy dated August 4, 1930, to the GPU has been preserved and it says the following: "I inform you that the explosion of the cathedral is criminally weak. Several explosions have been made, and all of them without result, only unnecessary crushing of bricks. The last explosion was not even carried out, and although 25 people were called to cordon off the area, the police, tram traffic, and other activities were delayed. At the moment of the explosion, it became clear that nothing was ready. Vzryvselprom technicians Petrov and Belyaev were not present during the loading, and the workers prepared for the explosion without supervision. Petrov arrived at the time of the explosion at 2 a.m., and it turned out that everything was not prepared. Such a negligent attitude to work has led to the fact that rumors about the city spread the most ridiculous, and in addition, urgent buildings, which are supplied with bricks of the cathedral, at this time forced to suspend". It was not possible to organize and effectively clear the consequences of the explosions. The whole area was piled with rubble, which prevented further work on the destruction of the cathedral. The debris reached even to the Nekrasovsky descent of Samara. For the removal there was not enough transport, submarines and horses, and there was no one to do the sorting. Even random organizations were involved in the work, which received the right to use construction waste for their needs, but still the dismantling of the cathedral, according to the management, was "criminally slow".
To speed up the process, on April 10, 1931, the trust "Volzhpromstroy" was ordered to build a factory of thermo-concrete bricks right on the square next to the demolished cathedral. It was assumed that the factory would produce up to 32 thousand bricks a day from building rubble, in practice in September 1931 an average of 25 thousand bricks a day were produced, and in the first days after the next explosion the production increased to 46 thousand pieces. Overall, the destruction of the cathedral went faster, in October the demolition of the lower church and the tomb of the bishops had already begun.
In addition to bricks, there was also extracted basement stone slab, which was used instead of bricks for the masonry of lower floors of interior walls, for the masonry of walls of cold buildings in the form of laying rows, and for the masonry of basements. Half-brick was used for foundations of kindergartens, educational complexes, etc. Tile fragments, pieces of marble, scrap iron — everything was used, since the quality of the materials used to build the cathedral was excellent. Special instructions were given for the preservation of galvanized iron, which was covered with the temple: heavy parts of the dismantled building, falling from a great height, destroyed everything in its path, including such valuable material.
On April 11, 1931, Gartman, the head of the construction office No. 2 of Volzhpromstroy, which was engaged in the demolition of the Cathedral, reported at a conference of builders: "At the hottest time in July 1930 we ran out of bricks. But last year we were saved by the churches, fences, and so on that we were demolishing. For example, we fulfilled 80 percent of our production program with old bricks. In this way we built the backwater, the Pedagogical University, the Communist University, and several other buildings" — in addition to the cathedral, the churches of the women's and men's monasteries were also demolished.
On June 2, 1931, a stone crusher was installed on the square, in which large stone remnants of crushed stone were for the production of heat-concrete stones. The remaining building rubble was transported under the Vilonovsky Descent, it was used to fill the ravine next to Krasnoarmeyskaya Square, under the slope on the western side of the Tuberculosis Hospital. The scrap was also used to build a foundation slab for the future cultural center.
On March 11, 1932 "Gorstroy" undertook the obligation: "To build three public toilets, each with a volume of 352 m³" on the squares of Kommunalnaya, Vokzalnaya and Revolution. The remains of the cathedral were also used for their construction.
In the middle of 1932, the cathedral was finally destroyed. But in the warehouses of Samara at the beginning of 1933, there were still "thermo-concrete stone, half-bricks, bricks (used), tiles (broken), broken marble, iron (scrap), doors (used)" — all that remained of the cathedral.
The final cost of dismantling the temple significantly exceeded the estimate and amounted to more than 260 thousand rubles.
Even before the destruction of the cathedral was completed, on November 3, 1931, the Center Volga Regional Executive Committee decided to build a cultural center in its place. Several projects were considered, including that of P. A. Shcherbachev, but the project of architects Noi Trotsky and Nikolai Katzenelenbogen was approved.
On March 17, 1935, the city council decided to redesign the central square and erect a monument to V.V. Kuibyshev, after whom both the square and the entire city were renamed. The reconstruction of the blocks around the square took several years and was completed in 1938. On November 5, 1938, the monument to V. V. Kuibyshev by M. G. Manizer was opened in the place of the cathedral, and at the end of December the whole complex of the square and the cultural center was opened, slightly shifted from the Volga to the former place of the cathedral.
The temple, designed for 2,500 people, was built in the Neo-Byzantine style. The temple was the first experience of building in this style in the central provinces of the Russian Empire.
There are different opinions about the shape of the temple. Some sources consider it to be round, with a large head and 12 small chapels. Some call it cubic, with five domes and six small chapels. Finally, others believe it to be octagonal. The difficulty in determining the shape is because the building was a combination of a four-pillar temple and an octagon, characteristic of Byzantine architecture: the dome of the temple rested on 8 columns formed by the division of four pylon arches. The bell tower, 79 meters high, considerably exceeded the height of the temple and was directly adjacent to its main volume. Its conclusion, in the form of a hollow dome resting on a series of semicircular arches, was later repeatedly reproduced in other bell towers. The traditional refectory was missing, which gave the appearance of the temple wholeness.
The temple had features characteristic of Byzantine, Russian and Romanesque styles at the same time. The gables of the facades belonged to the Romanesque style, the high drum in the center of the building is characteristic of Byzantine architecture, but it was crowned with a Russian helmet-shaped dome. Similar but smaller drums were placed above the compartments, rounded in plan, between the arms of the cross. To the "Romano-Byzantine" elements of the cathedral belonged twin and built semicircular windows, arcature-columnar belts, and creeping arches. Complexity of volumes, abundance of decorative brick elements, pyramidal volumes — also characteristic elements of the Byzantine style, meanwhile Russian elements were pinches, columns with couplings, borrowings from folk wooden architecture in the decoration of cornices. The high bell tower above the entrance is also typical for Russian temples "ship" [ru].
The main volume of the cathedral was surrounded by a covered gallery-gallery, half of its height, the temple was one of the first in the 19th century, in the design of which again used such a construction method. The gallery was crowned with seven small chapels that strengthened the effect of the silhouette, which looks like the steps of the cathedral.
During the construction, the project was slightly modified. For example, in the early 1890s, Shcherbachev recalculated the drum of the main dome.
Some authors consider the project of the Cathedral of the Holy Resurrection as the founder of a typological series of five-domed temples with a high bell tower, bringing "Byzantine style" with "Russian", also point to a number of religious buildings, the prototype of which served as a project of Gibert, including modern.
There is an opinion that the churches in Tallinn and Novocherkassk were built according to similar designs, but not everyone agrees.
There were different opinions about the appearance of the cathedral and its place in the architecture of the city. The Soviet local historian and architect E. F. Guryanov in his book quoted the writer Count E. A. de Salias with a very negative opinion about the cathedral: "I saw it on the alignment of the cathedral. A. de Salias with a very negative review of the cathedral: "I saw a church on the leveled square that I have never seen before because I have never seen an Orthodox church in the Turkish or Persian taste. I remember something ugly in the highest degree, brown, the color of fly agaric, and even that in outline something like mushrooms instead of domes...This cathedral...will remain to posterity the most faithful example of that era of whip and wine, in which it was concocted to the horror of the aesthetic sense". Guryanov echoed Salias, contrasting the cathedral with the "monumental image of the beginning of socialist culture" — the building of the Cultural Center, which was built in its place later. Since then the quote is often cited as an example of criticism of the architecture of the cathedral, even in scientific works, but the travel essay "Volga", from which the quote comes, was written by E. A. de Salias in 1870 when the foundation of the Cathedral of the Resurrection had just been completed and the masonry of the walls began, the domes appeared only more than ten years later, and the writer's statement probably refers to the Ascension Cathedral in Samara [ru].
Other contemporaries wrote about the impressive impression the cathedral made. The geographer and traveler A.P. Nechaev wrote in 1904: "Among the buildings of the city the cathedral, built in the Byzantine style, and a rather beautiful theater building attract the most attention". The travel writer E. L. Markov noted the brightness and picturesqueness of the view formed by the Cathedral, the Iveron Monastery [ru], the Strukovsky Garden and the Zhigulevskoye Brewery.
The old Samara artist Y. N. Maliev left a colorful description of the temple's appearance: "The church was crowned with twelve chapters painted in the color of the July sky. On the central vault and four chapters shone eight-pointed golden crosses. Five high porches led into the cathedral, two on the east and west sides and one on the north side. They were accessed by wide stone staircases with twenty steps each".
The theologian Veniamin Svechnikov, who studied at the Samara Theological School said:
The Englishman Donald Wallace spent six years in Russia and mentioned the Cathedral of the Resurrection in his book Russia as a classic example of Western European Russian studies. Without describing the artistic peculiarities of the building, which he saw during its construction, he wondered at the very fact of building a large cathedral in Samara in the presence of a mass of other urban problems, especially related to the condition of the streets: after the rains —impassable mud, and in dry weather— blinding and suffocating dust, behind which one cannot even see the opposite side of the street. In his opinion, the money could have been better spent, but "Russians have their own ideas about that. They are extremely religious and collect money for such needs voluntarily".
The description of the interior decoration of the cathedral was quite detailed in the Samara Diocesan Vedomosti:
There is little information about the interior of the lower church. It is known only that it contained a large icon of the Protection of the Holy Mary, which was presented to the Cathedral by the Samara Artists' Union. The iconostasis of the lower church was also designed by the architect A. A. Shcherbachev.
The description of the interior of the upper church is preserved in the booklet of P. V. Alabin In the Name of Christ the Savior Cathedral Church in Samara, published in 1894 on the occasion of the consecration of the Cathedral.
The forbidden icon was a copy of Neff's work The Resurrection of Christ, made by the artist, academician A. N. Novoskoltsev at the request of the provincial Zemstvo. Novoskoltsev was commissioned by the provincial zemstvo, about which the plaque under the picture reads: "The Samara Provincial Zemstvo Assembly, meeting on December 17, 1890, decided: in commemoration of the 25th anniversary of the existence of the zemstvo institutions granted by Emperor Alexander II, to bring into the Samara Cathedral, in the name of the Savior, this forbidden icon of the Resurrection of Christ, as a sign of the resurrection of our fatherland to a new life".
In front of the royal gates, an unquenchable altar lamp was burning with the Intercession of the Theotokos and the icon of Saints Cosmas and Damian. The lamp, worth 1000 rubles, was made at the expense of the Samara city society in memory of the rescue of the imperial family on October 17, 1888.
From the solea one could see other shrines of the cathedral and monuments of various events in the life of Russia and the province. On the right side, there was the chasse, under it, behind glass, there were the stones placed by Emperor Alexander II and his sons. The Ark was made in 1875 by one of the best St. Petersburg craftsmen from carved mortared oak in the Byzantine style according to the design of the architect Count de Rochefort. Next to it was a commemorative inscription on a gilded plaque: "These stones were laid by hand, the first by the now resting Tsar Liberator, Emperor Alexander II, the second by the now safely reigning Emperor Alexander Alexandrovich, and the third by His Imperial Highness, Grand Duke Vladimir Alexandrovich. These stones are immortal monuments to the unforgettable event of August 29, 1871, for the city of Samara". The ark contained the tools used by the royal family to lay the stones in the cathedral: a silver trowel and hammer, a wooden box for lime mortar and a washer for water.
Above the Ark there were two khorugves: one was brought by the Iversky Monastery in honor of the millennium of the death of St. Methodius (celebrated in Samara on April 6, 1885), the other was created by the Samara City Society in memory of the 900th anniversary of the Christianization of Russia.
The iconostasis and the adjacent icon cases were filled with various icons donated by the parishioners:
In addition to these donated icons, there were other temple shrines brought to commemorate various events. Thus, in memory of the 25th anniversary of the marriage of Alexander III and Maria Feodorovna, the Samara Provincial Zemstvo donated precious wedding wreaths, silver, gilded and enameled, made in the Moscow workshop of A. M. Postnikov, costing 1200 rubles.
Also to the cathedral monuments included a bell, donated by D. V. Kirilov in memory of the rescue of the imperial family, and even arranged around the cathedral garden, an area of 35 thousand square sazhens, laid in honor of the majority of tsesarevich Nicholas Alexandrovich May 6, 1884.