Sunday 17 November 2013

St.Michael's Church St.Petersburg (Built for the Estonian community)

Researching my family history has brought me so much pleasure over the years. Often the little finds lead to big discoveries, slowly joining all the dots together. Last week whilst in Tallinn I sat in the Estonian archives office sifting through files; old military records, property documents and the like, learning many wonderful new things about my family. Viewing their hand written letters almost brought tears to my eyes!

Today I learnt another interesting fact about my family history. I always knew my great grandparents were married in St. Petersburg but I never knew exactly where. I discovered today that the church in question was the St. Michael's Lutheran Church in St. Petersburg.  It was purpose built for the Estonian and German communities living in this part of Russia.

St. Michael's, located at 32/18a Sredny Avenue, Vasillevsky Island  was designed by Karl von Buhmering. Construction of the gothic style church took place between 1874-1876 and it could seat 800 people. In 1909 St. Michael's reportedly had a congregation of 2,000 people which included my family - my great grandparents were married there in 1912.




http://www.encspb.ru/object/2804010150?lc=en
http://baikalnature.com/info/landmarks/933
http://karpovka.net/2010/12/07/19256/