In May 2022, the seven-year restoration works on the world famous Smolny Resurrection Cathedral in St. Petersburg are scheduled to be over. Currently, work is under way to restore the plaster finish, stucco molding, and metal window fillings in the central dome. Construction workers are already dismantling scaffolding 72 meters high.

Restoration of the cathedral’s interior started in 2017. Then, under a layer of whitewash, restorers found fragments of ancient paintings. An outstanding architect, Francesco Rastrelli, started to build the cathedral in the middle of the 18th century, but did not have time to complete it. According to the project drawn up by the architect Vasily Stasov, who completed the construction of the cathedral at the beginning of the 19th century, its vaults and arches were to be covered with monochrome painting in the grisaille technique. However, Emperor Nicholas I ordered the painting to be whitewashed – the grisaille did not go with Rastrelli’s Elizabethan baroque.

During the years of Soviet power, the temple was closed for worship, and it was only in 2010 that daily services began. At the cathedral there are Page Corps for boys and Smolyanka School for girls. The kids are taught fencing, home economics, cooking, floristry, historic dance, horseback riding, and other disciplines.