Saint Basil Cathedral in Moscow ( Jack Versloot's Image )
The colorful onion dooms of Saint Basil’s cathedral have made this famous monument as one of the most distinguished emblems of Moscow. The cathedral was constructed on the edge of the red square between 1555 and 1561 to memorialize Ivan the Terrible’s victory against the Tartar Mongols in 1552 in the confined city of Kazan.
The location of Saint Basil’s cathedral was selected just outside the Kremlin wall and on the site of the earlier Trinity Cathedral, but it must not be labeled with Kremlin. The church was named as St. Basil’s after the ‘holy fool’ Basil the Blessed (1468-1552), who was a very renowned figure among the public of Moscow and was very much liked by the Ivan the terrible also.
A famous legend usually associated to Saint Basil’s cathedral is that after its completion , the Tsar ordered to make Postnik Yakovlev (the designer of this cathedral ) blind to prevent him from creating such a marvelous structure ever again.
The formation of St Basil’s is an arrangement of beauteous redbrick towers and crimping colors. There are nine separate chapels with an individual onion shaped doom and each one is reminding about the successful attack on Kazan city. It was also considered to be the symbol of New Jerusalem. From religious point of view this church was built to be the regalia as a guiding light to mankind. The Cathedral has also a spectacular interior. There are dreary chapels and maze-like corridors inside of the church and the walls are covered with amazing floral designs in domesticated colors dating from the 17th century. The windows of the chapels also provide wonderful views of the cathedral itself as well as of Red Square.
Although this is centuries old construction but it has been restored and repaired by the Russian government from time to time and they have kept it fully maintained. Regular fresh coats of paints are applied in order to keep the colourful exterior fully preserved. Saint Basil’s cathedral at Moscow has been part of the Moscow Kremlin and Red Square UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1990.