Either a cemetery, or a box of chocolates. Saint-Petersburg can be "decorated" with a 320-domed temple

Another wave of "insults to the feelings of believers" began in Russia. The reason is simple: in St. Petersburg they propose to build a 320-domed church higher than St. Isaac's Cathedral! And not just anywhere, but on the Okhtinsky cape, which 10 years ago the city defenders saved from the construction of Gazprom's Okhta Center skyscraper. By the way, this land still belongs to Gazprom.

The number of domes symbolizes the upcoming 320th anniversary of St. Petersburg, and the height of the temple will be 141.8 meters, which refers to the number of days of the Great Patriotic War.

The authors of the project are the PapaUrban initiative group. The collective is not inclined to classify itself as either Orthodox activists or city rights activists, however, according to the authors, they do not like the existing plans to build a business center on this territory.

A scandal about this has already flared up on social networks: a project that cannot be called an architectural masterpiece, and certainly has nothing to do with the aesthetics of St. Petersburg, is already being compared to a “golden graveyard”, painful growths and a gift box of chocolates:

- Make the fool pray to God, he will hurt his forehead! The abundance of crosses resembles a graveyard and gold does not correct this impression.

- It resembles some kind of growths, like a disease...

- First, restore the old ones. All over Russia there are architectural monuments for more than a hundred years, ruins. Why, though? In some Zadrypinsk with a population of 5 thousand, there is no one to pick up especially from...

- Wait a minute! Why not a 365-dome? And in a leap year, add another temporary dome! It's so convenient - one dome a day!

- I remembered an anecdote - “Ilyusha cut off the filthy head of the snake, and in place of the severed head two grew at once, he cut off these two heads, four appeared. So Ilyusha mocked the beast until it looked like a broom". This priest looks somehow pathologically.

By the way, symbolism does not end with the number of domes and the height of the temple: it is proposed to set up an archaeological museum in its basement, where the remains of the medieval fortresses Landskrona and Nyenskans will be exhibited: the pentahedral shape of the plan echoes the outlines of a 17th century fortress, and around the temple it is proposed to set up a landscape park and organize parking for 1703 parking spaces, which corresponds to the year of foundation of St. Petersburg.

However, there are already other, rather optimistic assumptions that this project was started on purpose in order to again draw attention to the Okhtinsky Cape and thereby save it from another attempt at "improvement". And in fact, this project looks too deliberately wild. It is possible that this is just an advertising campaign of the initiative group PapaUrban. However, after the appearance of the temple of the Armed Forces near Moscow, it is difficult to be surprised at anything...

"The project of a 320-domed church on the Okhta Cape? They are not going to implement it - this is a "post-ironic art manifestation" against the development of the territory”, - writes one of the commentators of this news.