Grand Choral Synagogue, St. Petersburg
Moorish and Byzantine Revival synagogue built under a tsar's edict to keep it deliberately modest.
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About this audio guide
This guide to the Grand Choral Synagogue in Saint Petersburg opens with Tsar Alexander the Second's 1869 order shrinking the planned dome and dictating where the building could and could not stand. It follows Baron Horace Ginzburg, who spent two decades honoring his father's promise to see it built, and the Moorish arches and ribbed dome that finally rose over the neighborhood. Look up at that dome as you take in how much smaller it turned out than its architects first dreamed.
This audio guide was created using AI.
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