The Menshikov Tower is a Baroque Russian Orthodox church in Moscow's Basmanny District, also called the Church of Archangel Gabriel. It was built for Alexander Menshikov on the site of an older church. Ivan Zarudny managed the work, and Domenico Trezzini led European craftsmen for about six months before leaving for Saint Petersburg. It was structurally complete by 1707.
The tower rose 266 feet (81 meters), the same height as the Ivan the Great Bell Tower, and was topped by a 98-foot (30-meter) spire with a gilded angel. It was the first Moscow building richly decorated with figurative sculpture, though most of that was lost in the eighteenth century.
In 1723 lightning set the upper wooden structure on fire, and the tower stood without its top until the restoration of 1773 to 1779. A pineapple-shaped spire was added between 1821 and the 1850s, and the church was looted in 1922.
Comments