The Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood is the building that represents the largest monument of Russian mosaic art. It is located on the banks of the Neva River, on the site where on March 1, 1881 the liberator Tsar Alexander II was fatally wounded by Nikolai Rysakov, a young member of the Narodnaya Volya ("People's Will") movement. Upon the death of the Tsar, Russia suffered a devastating blow to the rapid progress of the economic and social foundations and sent it back to the days of blood and the dark ages. The Russian people not only lost their beloved Tsar, but also lost the ability to enforce and enforce the constitutional monarchy throughout Russia. For the first time in a long time Russia was living in a relatively peaceful world and had reforms aimed at ordinary people. Thirty years before the assassination, Alexander II drew up and successfully implemented his reform plans in every aspect of the Russian Empire: the power of self-government was given to serfs, cities became more independent, the education system and access education was facilitated and improved and major revisions were made. obsolete military forces had been successfully executed. Russia was finally on the right track. After the assassination, Alexander III was crowned Tsar Alexander III. One of the first projects on which Alexander III began his work was the Church of the Savior. The new tsar made the condition that the Resurrection Cathedral (the temple's official name) be built on the model of Old Russian-style churches in the exact place where his father was murdered. Money for such a grandiose project was collected throughout Russia for almost two years. It costs a staggering 4.5 million rubles and took 24 years to build. The best of the best were commissioned to build the Church of the Savior. According to the newspaper...petersburg.com, the Church was facing demolition. During World War II, St. Petersburg (then Leningrad) was under siege for just over three years and was severely damaged by bombing by Nazi Germany's Luftwaffe. The damage from the Second World War is still visible on the walls of the Church. After the war the Piccolo Teatro dell'Opera used the church as a warehouse. The website states: “The precious shrine has been almost completely destroyed. All that remained were four jasper columns with mosaic decorations and a part of the balustrade. In the 1970s, restoration work on the Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood began. Volunteers from all over Russia, just as the funds raised from all over Russia to build and rebuild this place, poured into St. Petersburg to restore the Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood to its former glory. It wasn't fully completed until 1997.