Streets of the Neva, Peter the Great, golden domes with Orthodox crosses, mosaics. “Russian corner” in the center of cold prim and bourgeois Ottoman Paris. “It is very curious, very original, very beautiful.” – exclaimed Napoleon III, having seen the plans for the future Russian church, and allocated a small piece of land on the Rue Darius for the construction.
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The first stone was laid in 1859, and two years later the church was consecrated. Built according to the design of architects Kuzmin and Strom in the style of tent architecture of the XVII century, painted inside with frescoes by Russian artists – gold medalists of the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts, it immediately became more than just a place of worship, but the heart of Russian Paris.
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Here in the pre-revolutionary era young Ilya Repin and Vasily Polenov came to meet with their older friends, here Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev was buried. After the revolution, Russian officers gave regimental icons of the White Guard here, and a copy of the crown in which Nicholas II was anointed to the reign is carefully kept here. Here, in the school at the church, still in operation today, first-generation emigrants educated their children in the Russian spirit. Here Pablo Picasso married the ballerina Olga Khokhlova. Bulat Okudzhava, who died in Paris, was buried here. And many, many other events are connected with this church on Rue Darius….
