The Smolny Cathedral
The Empress Elizabeth commissioned Rastrelli to construct a
convent where she planned on spending her last days. Alas Rastrelli,
who was busy constructing both the Winter Palace and the Summer
Palace in Tsarskoye Selo, did not finish it before the empress'
death and the convent was never completed. Catherine the Great
in her endless desire to inflict enlightenment upon her subjects,
took what there was of the Smolny project and turned it into a
finishing school for daughters of the gentry, the first educational
establishment for women in Russia. The young women lived and studied
in the long blue buildings flanking the cathedral. As the school
expanded the neighboring yellow Smolny Institute was built to
hold the overflow. During the Civil War the beautiful cathedral
was used as a vegetable warehouse and later closed while the icons
and other valuables were stripped out. It reopened after World
War II as the Museum of Leningrad - Today and Tomorrow exhibiting
"the great contribution made by the people of Leningrad to
the fulfillment of the resolutions of the Party and government."
This too has closed and now Smolny is the home of temporary exhibitions
and occasional choral or chamber concerts.
