Did you know there are 3 Churches on the Spilled Blood in Russia?

Ludushka (CC BY-SA 3.0)

The most famous is, naturally, the Church of the Resurrection of Christ on Blood in St. Petersburg. It was built on the site of an assassination attempt on Alexander II. On 1 March 1881, terrorists threw a bomb - first at his carriage and then directly under the tsar’s feet. The mortally wounded Alexander II was carried to the Winter Palace, where he died soon afterward. In 1883, authorities began to build a Russian-style church, designed by Alfred Parland and Archimandrite Ignatius, on the site of the assassination attempt. It is decorated with many mosaics, on which as many as three dozen artists worked on, including Viktor Vasnetsov and Mikhail Nesterov.

Legion Media

The Church of Demetrius on the Blood in Uglich was built on the site of the death of Tsarevich Dmitry, the son of Ivan the Terrible. According to one version, the eight-year-old prince was playing with some boys - they had to throw a knife as far as possible beyond a line drawn on the ground. Suddenly, he had an epileptic fit, during which he accidentally struck himself with a pile-iron nail in the throat. According to another, he was murdered. In the 17th century, a church, decorated with paintings telling about his death, was built on the site of the prince’s death.

Vyacheslav Bukharov (CC BY-SA 4.0)

The third Church on the Spilled Blood is in Yekaterinburg. The church-monument on the blood in the name of all the saints who have shone in the Russian was built on the site of the Ipatiev House. It was there that Nicholas II and his family were shot. The construction of the five-dome church was only completed in 2003. On its lower level there is a crypt - there are items remaining from the Ipatiev House and an exhibition about the last days of the Romanovs.

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