Menshikov Tower

The church was initially built in 1707 to order of Alexander Menshikov by Ivan Zarudny assisted by Domenico Trezzini, a team of Italian-Swiss craftsmen from Ticino and Fribourg cantons and Russian stonemasons from Kostroma and Yaroslavl.

Twenty years later the influential statesman Alexander Menshikov consolidated parcels of land south from present-day Clean Ponds.

Domenico Trezzini, subordinate to Zarudny, was placed in charge of European craftsmen (of Fontana, Rusco, Ferrara and other Ticino families) but after half a year was dispatched to Saint Petersburg.

Work on the tower interiors slowed down; Menshikov's private box inside the church was rebuilt in an ordinary side altar.

In 1773–1779 the tower was restored and acquired its current shape: instead of recreating the destroyed upper octagon, the new architects replaced it with a compact but complex baroque dome.

Instead, the congregation built a smaller neoclassical church of St. Theodore Stratelates (completed 1806), which also doubled as the bell tower.