The Kazan Church Reconstructed

Opposite the imposing walls of the Kremlin and the ruddy marble of Lenin's mausoleum, the church that has been rising from the ground for the past year is nearing completion. On Nov. 4, the cathedral of the Mother of God of Kazan, originally built in 1636 to commemorate victory over the Polish Army and destroyed in 1936, will open again on the corner of Red Square.


"We'll get it done but it's too much of a rush", said Olga Borisovna, one of the architects in charge of the reconstruction, examining the imposing interior where heaters are working around the clock to dry the plaster. "President BorisYeltsin's men come here twice a day to check up on the work and make sure it is being done on time".


Nov. 4 was chosen as the church's opening day as that is the holy day of the icon of Kazan. The icon, one of the holiest in Russia, supposedly helped Russia defeat the Poles who briefly controlled Moscow in the early 17th century.


The church was destroyed in 1936 on the orders of Lazar Kaganovich, one of Stalin's henchmen, because it blocked access to Red Square for the all important military parades that were the pride of the Soviet Union's leadership.


"It bothered them", said Borisovna, explaining why the communists had the ancient church leveled. "They put up a public toilet in its place".


The sacrifice of one man made the reconstruction of the church possible. In the 1920s an architect, Pyotr Baranovsky, was in charge of restoring the church to its original state by taking off all the additions and changes that had been added to the building over the centuries.


In 1932 he was sent to a prison camp for five years for daring to oppose a plan to destroy St. Basil's Cathedral - the multicolored onion-domed wonder that has become the worldwide symbol of Russia. When he returned from prison in 1936, he found that the church of the icon of Kazan was being dismantled.


Forbidden to live in Moscow and forced to report to the police twice a day, Baranovsky commuted into Moscow every day to draw and measure the church as it was being disassembled.


"He made up 16 blueprints which detail the whole building", said Borisovna, lovingly poring over one of the faded and crumpled blueprints in a shed at the construction site. "All his life he dreamed of this church being rebuilt".


When permission was given for reconstruction to begin, a team of archaeologists dug down to the original foundations. The church is being placed back on those very stones.


"I'm not religious but I want to rebuild a monument to our people that was destroyed by the communists", said Borisovna.


The job is a mammoth one for a country where no churches have been built for decades. Workers are trying to recover the techniques their ancestors used while clusters of craftsmen stand under tents at the construction site carving the ornate decorations that will grace the church's red brick walls.


The state is paying most of the billion ruble (about $1 million) cost of the construction project and the Russian Orthodox Church is chipping in by providing the workers with free meals.


"The next project being considered is the reconstruction of the church of Christ the Savior", said Borisovna. "But I don't know if we can do it. We just don't have the artisans and techniques needed to do that".


Christ the Savior was a huge church near the Kremlin. It was destroyed in 1931 to make way for Stalin's plan to build the tallest building in the world topped off by the world's largest statue of Lenin. In the end the swampy ground at the site derailed the plan and a big swimming pool was built there instead.