The Unique and peculiar St. Basil’s Cathedral, National symbol of Russia, turns 450. It looks like Disneyland palace rather than a cathedral judging by its architecture.
It was ridiculed during the cold war. Khrushchev or Brezhnev would gaze at their troops marching and this weird architecture would be looked at like a clown’s nose. Stalin indeed wanted to destroy it like the other churches he succeeded in destroying like the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour. His orders to demolish was thwarted by Pyotr Baranovsky, architect, who sent a telegram to Stalin saying it would be better to kill him rather than destroying that beautiful piece of architecture. St. Basil also insulted Napoleon’s architectural sensibilities. Fortunate for the Cathedral the rain came to the rescue to put out the fuses when he tried to dynamite it.
It could have been either the symbolic power of the cathedral or its laughable architecture that led to its persecution. It’s Candy color and onion shaped domes, sharp rising pillars smells extreme architecture. Not much is known about the architect, Postnik Yakovlev. Ivan the Terrible’s predecessor, Ivan | | | imported Italian architect to design the Cathedral. But still the architect is still a mystery to the historians.
The architecture is flawless with a central church surrounded by four symmetrical minor and four major chapels aligned to the compass, except for the ninth chapel built for Basil himself. Jerusalem invigorated this religious building.
The Christian Beliefs is lost today and the St.Basil Cathedral is only seen on T-shirts, Plates and movies. We can as well brand it the Craziest monument with a unique looking aesthetics.
