Sparrow Hills
Though construction of Vitberg's cathedral on the Sparrow Hills was begun in 1826, a new emperor, Nicholas I abandoned the "Masonic" plan for a less "Roman Catholic" neo-Byzantine construction. The architect was accused of bribery and exiled to Vyatka, an isolated city halfway between Moscow and the Ural Mountains. There his most successful work was accomplished, among which were his monumental gates for the Alexander Garden (1836) and the Alexander Nevsky Cathedral (1839–1848). A fellow-exile there was Alexander Herzen, who made friends with Vitberg, portrayed him sympathetically in "My Past and Thoughts", and was briefly influenced by Vitberg's strain of mystical thought.