Church of the Savior on Blood
— the place a tsar fell, and a mosaic rose.
Not only on a wall.
“A church built on the cobblestones where a tsar fell. The Griboyedov Canal curves past it, and the nine domes rise above the rooftops of central St. Petersburg in colours that don't quite belong to any other church in Russia. Inside, the walls are mosaic from floor to vault. The work outlasted the empire that began it.
Church of the Savior on Blood, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
The Church of the Saviour on Spilled Blood stands on the Griboyedov Canal in central St. Petersburg, on the cobblestones where Tsar Alexander II was mortally wounded by a bomb in March 1881. Construction began under Alexander III in 1883 and finished in 1907, twenty-four years after the assassination. The architect Alfred Parland worked in the Russian Revival style, a deliberate break from the neoclassical city around it. Nine domes rise above the canal. The site sits a short walk from Nevsky Prospekt and the Russian Museum.
The interior holds roughly 7,500 square metres of mosaic, among the largest mosaic collections of any church in the world. The work was carried out over a decade by Russian artists including Viktor Vasnetsov and Mikhail Nesterov, set tessera by tessera onto walls, vaults, and pillars. The exterior is no less worked: enamelled tiles, patterned brick, and bands of carved stone trim the façade. The bell tower carries the coats of arms of the towns and provinces that mourned the dead tsar.
The church is operated as a museum within the State Museum complex that includes Saint Isaac's Cathedral. It opens daily except Wednesdays, generally from 10:30 to 18:00, with extended evening hours in summer. Tickets are sold on-site and online. Photography is allowed without flash. The nearest metro stations are Nevsky Prospekt and Gostiny Dvor, both about five minutes on foot. Orthodox services are held only on selected feast days. Most visitors stay about forty minutes; the mosaics reward longer than that.