Date

Circa 1910

A Russian Orthodox cathedral in downtown Tiflis (now Tbilisi), Georgia, constructed during the Imperial Russian rule in the 1871-1872 and 1889-1897 and demolished by the Soviet authorities in 1930. The novel design of the cathedral became a standard for the emerging Neo-Byzantine style well before the cathedral was completed. Grimm reused a cross-shaped pattern invented by Roman Kuzmin, with four symmetrical apses tightly blended into the main volume (unlike the Hagia Sophia prototype with only two principal apses); however, his version was extended vertically, radically departing from the flattened shapes of early Byzantine temples. Interior icons were based on prototypes by Fyodor Bruni and Victor Vasnetsov. The site is now occupied by the Georgian Parliament building.