St Basil's Cathedral, Red Square, Moscow in winter
St Basil's is a 16th century church on the south edge of Red Square and is close to the Kremlin. In 1552, Russian troops took Kazan - the capital of the Kazan khanate from the Tartars and in commemoration of this event Tsar Ivan the Terrible ordered the construction of the church on Red Square. The interior of the cathedral is a collection of separate chapels, each filled with beautiful icons and medieval painted walls. At the front of the cathedral stands a bronze statue commemorating Dmitry Pozharsky and Kuzma Minin, who rallied Russia's volunteer army against the Polish invaders during the Time of Troubles in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. It is believed that the tsar Ivan had the architect, Postnik Yakovlev, blinded to prevent him from building a more magnificent building for anyone else. The brightly coloured domes were added later as they were originally in gold.
Size: 5525px × 4266px
Location: St Basil's Cathedral, Red Square, Moscow, Russia
Photo credit: © ian macrae young / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: basil, cathedral, dmitry, domes, icons, ivan, kazan, khanate, kuzma, minin, moscow., onion, postnik, pozharsky, red, russia, square, st, tartar, tatar, terrible, time, troubles, winter., yakovlev
