The Rest of the Story

The photo below was taken 17 July 1996, while the reconstruction was still taking place. My Russian friends at the pedagogical university told me quite a different story. It is just too good to be left untold.

Even before the original church was built, this was the site of a convent. When the convent was torn down to build the original Catherdral of Christ the Savior, the nuns at the convent said that it would be cursed because the convent was destroyed. True to thier prediction, it seemed the cathedral was cursed because the Soviets demolished it in 1931. The next project, the Palace of the Soviets never really got a good start, and was left a hole for many years. When Krushev finally built the immense pool, it was also cursed. Mysterious drownings took place in the pool. Other swimmers had close calls when they were pulled under the water by unseen forces. Now the cathedral is back, and one can only hope that whatever brought the bad luck is now gone.