Where is Peter 1 buried? Necropolis of the dynasty

In mid-May 1703, the Russian Tsar Peter 1 in the Neva Delta on the Hare Island laid the fortress, calling it St. Petersburg, in the name of his heavenly patron. In the summer of this year, together with other buildings, a wooden church was laid, which was named after the holy apostles Peter and Paul. After the Poltava victory of 1709, Petersburg began to be built up with magnificent buildings, because it is now the capital of the Russian State.

Necropolis of the dynasty

The Peter and Paul Cathedral is an outstanding architectural monument of the early 18th century, it is widely known, and the sparkling spire is one of the symbols of the city. But not everyone is aware that the cathedral is the burial-vault of the Russian Imperial House , where Peter I and Catherine I are buried , as well as all subsequent crowned dynasty people.

But contemporaries perceived the cathedral primarily as a crypt of the House of the Romanovs, it contained only those sacraments that were dedicated to these sad events, baptisms and weddings were not held. The decoration of mourning ceremonies was attended by the best architects and artists of St. Petersburg. To my great regret, only the contemporaries of the events could see the funeral processions, after all the decorations were sorted out and the temple took its usual form.

Traditionally, in the cathedral there were burials not only of embalmed bodies in closed sealed coffins, but also of internal organs decomposed along the vessels. The day before the official ceremony they were placed at the bottom of the grave. This procedure was attended, as a rule, only by members of the "Sad Commission", engaged in organizing funerals, and the clergy.

From the history of the cathedral

In 1712, on the birthday of the city of Peter the Great, in front of many high-ranking persons, laid the first stone of the cathedral in place of a wooden church. In 1733, the temple was consecrated, it is designed in the Baroque style and is one of the majestic monuments of architecture. The cathedral is a rectangular building located from the west to the east, above its eastern part there is a drum with a dome, and on the west side there is a bell tower with a gilded spire of 122.5 meters, which until now is the tallest structure of St. Petersburg. Since 1858 the church is called "Peter and Paul". On the second photo you see the interior of the cathedral where Peter 1 is buried.

Under the leadership of the tsar, the cathedral was built very quickly. Domenico Trezzini - Swiss engineer - was appointed architect, he was given the best masters. After 8 years outside the construction of the cathedral was completed. From Holland were brought watches with chimes, they were purchased for a huge amount of money - 45,000 rubles. After 3 years, a gold-plated spire was installed. The iconostasis, the work on which Peter put on the shoulders of architect Zarudny, was made for 4 years. Under his guidance on the drawings worked artists Ivanov and Teleg.

Emperor Peter the First where is buried?

Most likely, already at the beginning of construction, the king, following the example of Constantine - the first Christian emperor - wanted to turn the cathedral into the tomb of his dynasty. Before the construction of the cathedral, all the kings were buried in the Archangel Cathedral of the Kremlin (Boris Godunov resting in the Trinity-Sergius Lavra).

For two centuries the Peter and Paul Cathedral, where Peter the Great was buried, Was the burial place of almost all the emperors before Alexander III and many family relatives, only Peter II and John VI are buried elsewhere. The very first in 1708, still in the wooden church, was repaired at the age of one and a half years, Catherine, daughter of Peter the Great.

Graves of celebrities. Peter I and his descendants

Before the completion of the construction, other burials were made in the cathedral. In the summer, in 1715, the remains of the daughters of Peter 1 - Natalia and Margarita were brought here. In the winter - queen Marfa Matveevna (Apraksina), who was the wife of Tsar Feodor Alekseevich. In 1717 the son of Peter 1 was buried, Paul, the next year the soul of Peter's eldest son Aleksey Petrovich, from his first wife, Lopukhina, executed by order of his father for anti-state activities, was repaired. Five years later, in 1723 Maria Alekseyevna, the disgraced sister of Peter the Great, was buried here. The graves of Tsarevich Alexei and Queen Marfa Matveevna are under the bell tower in the side-chapel of St. Catherine. The grave where Peter 1 is buried, in the photo below.

It was here, on the unfinished cathedral, on March 8, 1725, that the body of Peter the Great, asleep (January 28), was permanently buried. According to the project of D. Trizini, a temporary wooden church was built inside the cathedral, and there they transferred it with the magnificent ceremony of the departed Peter the Great and his daughter Natalia, who died on March 4.

Tightly closed coffin, where Peter 1 was buried, was installed on a sheathed cassock with a gold cloth, under a canopy. In the summer of 1727, the coffin was placed there with his deceased wife, Empress Catherine.

Ashes to the earth

In May 1731, the Empress Anna Ioannovna ordered that the ashes of the spouses be buried. The funeral took place with a special ceremony on May 29. Among those present there were persons from the Admiralty, generals, colleges. When the coffins were placed in a special place in the Imperial Cemetery, 51 volleys were fired from the fortress.