(3 Sep 1997) Russian/Nat
A grand cathedral which was razed to the ground by former Russian leader Joseph Stalin in the 1930 has been reopened in Moscow after a multi-million dollar rebuilding project.
The reconstruction of the 15-storey took more than two years.
It was dedicated on Wednesday by the Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church, Alexiy II and formally opened by the Russian President, Boris Yeltsin and the Mayor of Moscow, Mayor Yury Luzhkov.
The cathedral has become as much a landmark in modern-day Moscow as the Kremlin.
Its onion-shaped domes, made with 50 kilos of solid gold, are a shining example of the re-birth of the Orthodox Church in post-communist times.
On Wednesday, President Yeltsin came to see the completion of what has become for Moscow's mayor, Yury Luzhkov, a pet project.
The original cathedral was dynamited in 1931 on Stalin's orders, to clear away a competing creed to communism.
Stalin's hidden dream was to build a rival to New York's Empire State Building, but the war intervened and his grand design remained on the drawing board.
An open-air swimming pool was built on the site instead.
But these days, almost as fast as Stalin knocked down the churches, Luzhkov is now rebuilding them.
The construction of the original cathedral took nearly 25 years - the new one emerged in just two.
The first stone of the new cathedral was laid in January 1995 and the mayor promised the building would be complete by Moscow's 850th anniversary.
Wednesday's dedication means he has lived up to that promise.
By offering tax breaks and encouraging donations from Moscow's numerous new rich, Luzhkov achieved what would have been impossible in the Russian capital just a few years ago.
But it has also attracted much criticism from those who felt the millions invested in such a project would have been better spent on improving living conditions for the city's less well off.
Cynics also point out that it's just part of Luzhkov's bid to become Russian president in the next elections.
Such thoughts were cast aside during the opening ceremony.
Now Moscow has a cathedral to rival St Peter's, Westminster Abbey and Notre Dame.
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