page_title: Grand Choral Synagogue (St. Petersburg)
section_title: Architecture
hierarchical_section_title: Grand Choral Synagogue (St. Petersburg) / History / Architecture
caption_attribution_description: Русский: Ограда Санкт-Петербургской синагоги. 11 октября 2007. English: The fence of Saint Petersburg Synagogue. October 11, 2007.
context_page_description: The Grand Choral Synagogue of St. Petersburg is the third-largest synagogue in Europe. Other names include The Great Choral Synagogue of St. Petersburg and The Edmond J Safra Grand Choral Synagogue. Sometimes it is simply referred to as the St. Petersburg Synagogue or Bolshaya Sinagoga. It was built between 1880 and 1888, and consecrated in December 1893. The synagogue is located at 2 Lermontovskii Prospekt, St. Petersburg, Russia. The Chief Rabbi of St. Petersburg is Menachem Mendel Pewzner. Today the synagogue is a registered landmark and an architectural monument of federal importance.
context_section_description: The architects and supervisors for the first synagogue in St. Petersburg chose the Moorish style for its design, modeled in part after Berlin's Oranienburger Straße New Synagogue with its melange of Moorish and Byzantine motifs. In the end, the project boasted an eclectic blend of neo-Byzantine and Moorish revival styles with Arabesque motifs, upon the request of V. V. Stasov, the influential Russian art critic and supervisor of the project. The Great Choral Synagogue was designed by architects I.I. Shaposhnikov, L. Bakhman, and V.A. Shreter, with the participation of V. V. Stasov and N. L. Benois, who was the curator of the project and the confidant of the tsar and the Russian government. Poet Osip Mandelstam later called the building a "lush strangler fig tree."
  The land for the synagogue was allocated near the Mariinsky Theatre. The construction was carried out under the management of the Construction Committee headed by A.A. Kaufman. The architect and superintendent of construction was A.V. Malov, between 1880 and 1888, and his assistants were S.O. Klein and B.I. Girshovich. The Small Synagogue was opened first, in 1886. The Great Choral Synagogue was consecrated in 1893.
caption: Synagogue fence
exif: {"Image ImageDescription": "OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA", "Image Make": "OLYMPUS OPTICAL CO.,LTD", "Image Model": "C4100Z,C4000Z", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CS Windows", "Image DateTime": "2007:10:11 23:31:18", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image ExifOffset": "280", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "1018", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "7354", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/125", "EXIF FNumber": "4", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Program Creative", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "100", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0220", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2007:10:11 13:20:19", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2007:10:11 13:20:19", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "5", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "3", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF LightSource": "Cloudy weather", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "34/5", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "2280", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "1520", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "892", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Manual", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "0", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Landscape", "EXIF GainControl": "None", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal"}