Location: Kirov Street
Tel. +380 654 321 616
The Cathedral of St. Alexander Nevsky was built in honor of the
Russian Emperor Alexander II, who died at the hands of the Narodnaya
Volya. On March 1, 1891, the tenth anniversary of the death of the
emperor, Empress Maria Feodorovna participated in the laying of the
first stone. The consecration of the cathedral took place on
December 4, 1902 in the presence of Emperor Nicholas II, his family
and entourage.
Two-tiered, with open galleries, the Yalta
Cathedral is built in the Old Russian style and is decorated with
numerous decorative elements: pilasters, palaces, portals, hearts, a
hipped porch. The elegant look was given to it by white and pink
tones. Next to the cathedral, a three-tiered bell tower was built,
11 bells for which were cast in Moscow. The icons for the cathedral
were painted by masters from Mstera in the Vladimir province.
The interior was designed by architect S. P. Kroshechkin, the
iconostasis, the dome and the walls were painted by the Kiev artist
I. Murashko. The mosaic with the image of the holy Prince on the
outside of the church was made by the students of the Venetian A.
Salviati. The domes of the temple were covered with gold.
In
1938, the church was closed, the bells were sent for melting. A
sports club was set up in the cathedral. In the post-war years, St.
Luke (V. F. Voino-Yasenetsky) repeatedly served in the cathedral on
major church holidays, and the rector, since the early 50s, was his
appointed associate and friend, mitrophoric Archpriest Mikhail
Semenyuk. The service, which was resumed during the Great Patriotic
War, has not been interrupted since then.
The construction of the cathedral of St.
Alexander Nevsky was inextricably linked with the Russian imperial
house, whose patron was considered to be Saint Alexander Nevsky. The
cathedral was built in honor of the Russian Emperor Alexander II,
who died at the hands of the People's Will.
The construction
committee, established on March 1, 1890, was headed by the famous
Yalta engineer and local historian A.L. Berthier-Delagarde. Large
sums were donated by the noble townspeople B.V. Khvoschinsky and
I.F.Tokmakov, a plot of land was donated by Baron A.L. Wrangel. The
architects were N.P. Krasnov and P.K. Terebenev, whose project was
personally approved by the Emperor Alexander III.
Empress
Maria Feodorovna took part in laying the first stone on March 1,
1891, on the day of the tenth anniversary of the death of the
emperor. The consecration of the cathedral took place on December 4,
1902, in the presence of Emperor Nicholas II, his family and
retinue.
Two-tiered, with open galleries, the Yalta Cathedral
was built in the neo-Russian style and is decorated with numerous
decorative elements: pilasters, icon cases, portals, hearts, and a
hipped porch. White and pink tones gave it an elegant look. A
three-tiered bell tower was built next to the cathedral, 11 bells
for which were cast in Moscow. The icons for the cathedral were
painted by craftsmen from Mstera in the Vladimir province.
The interior was designed by the architect S.P. Kroshechkin, the
iconostasis, dome and walls were painted by the Kiev artist
I.Murashko. The mosaic with the image of the holy prince on the
outside of the church was made by the disciples of the Venetian A.
Salviati. The domes of the temple were covered with gold.
Next to the cathedral in the style of an old Russian tower, a church
house was built by the architect M.I.Kotenkov. In 1908, the
construction of a three-story building was completed, which housed a
parish school in honor of Tsarevich Alexei, a shelter for
tuberculosis patients, a meeting room for the Alexander Nevsky
brotherhood.
The Orthodox Alexander Nevsky Brotherhood was
engaged in charitable activities, the organization of parish schools
and missionary activities, and during the First World War also
helped the wounded and set up hospitals and sanatoriums.
The
first rector of the cathedral, which became the favorite temple of
the Yalta people, was A. Ya. Ternovsky, who had previously served at
the Yalta church of St. John Chrysostom.
“On August 20, 1923,
Archpriest Sergiy Bazhenov and Archbishop Alexander Vvedensky,
authorized by the Renovationist Church, arrived in Yalta,
accompanied by an agent of the Simferopol department of the GPU.
They proposed to transfer to the disposal of the Renovationist
Church the Alexander Nevsky Cathedral, which had been transferred by
registration approved by the People's Commissariat of Internal
Affairs of the Crimean Republic on July 25, 1923 under No. 5 to the
Alexander Nevsky religious community. A subscription was taken from
representatives of the community to keep the conversation held
secret, but they did not obey this requirement as illegal. Then
Bazhenov made a provocative statement that all those who recognize
the Patriarch are counterrevolutionaries, from the point of view of
state power, the only acceptable church is the Renovationist Church,
therefore, all others that do not even commemorate the Patriarch are
counterrevolutionary, and threatened with reprisals. Half an hour
later, the rector of the Yalta Cathedral (after the refusal to hand
it over to A. Vvedensky) was summoned to the Yalta department of the
GPU, and 3 days later - all the rest of the Yalta clergy, who were
charged with commemorating Tikhon and sending him an address with a
greeting about joining the administration of the Church ".
In
1938 the temple was closed, the bells were sent for melting. A
sports club was set up in the cathedral, and the Teacher's House in
the school building.
Divine services in the cathedral were
resumed in 1942, after the establishment of the German
administration in Crimea. After the liberation of Crimea, the temple
was registered as actually operating.
The premises of the
parish school were returned only almost half a century later; since
1995 there has been a general education school and about 100
children study there.
In the 1990s, high-altitude work on the
domes of the Temple was carried out by a team of industrial climbers
led by the famous Soviet mountaineer and mine rescuer, a resident of
Alushta, Elvira Nasonova.