The first illustrated account of Russian architecture was the project of Anatoly Nikolaievich Demidov, 1st Prince of San Donato and French draughtsman André Durand, the record of their 1839 tour of Russia was published in Paris in the 1840s as Voyage Pittoresque et Archéologique en Russie.

Durand's lithographs betray a foreigner's sensitivity to the seeming otherness of Russian architecture, displaying some curiously distorted features, and while they are, on the whole, fairly accurate representations, the folios that he produced belong to the genre of travel literature rather than historical inquiry.

The state took an interest in the endeavour by sponsoring a series of folios published as The antiquities of the realm of Russia («Древности российского государства») (Moscow 1849–1853, 6 vol.)

Perhaps the Society's most significant achievement was the publication of the Proceedings of the Commission on conservation of the old monuments («Труды Комиссии по сохранению древних памятников») in 6 volumes between 1907 and 1915.

Another direction taken by the Russian Revival style was a reaction against official Thon art, influenced by Romanticism, Slavophilism and detailed studies of vernacular architecture.

The forerunner of this trend in church design was Alexey Gornostaev (in his later years, 1848–1862), notable for reinventing Northern Russian tented roof motif augmented with Romanesque and Renaissance vault structure.

The first result of these studies in architecture was a birth of "folk" or Pseudo-Russian style, exemplified by 1870s works of Ivan Ropet (Terem in Abramtsevo, 1873) and Viktor Hartmann (Mamontov printing house, 1872).

These buildings were built, as a rule, from the brick or whitestone, with the application of modern construction technology they began to be abundantly decorated in the traditions of Russian popular architecture.

The characteristic architectural elements of this time, such as "pot-bellied" columns, low arched ceilings, narrow window-loop holes, tented roofs, frescoes with floral designs, use of multicolored tiles and massive forging, are manifest both in the external and in the internal decoration of these structures.

At the turn of the centuries, the Russian Orthodox Church experienced a new trend; construction of unusually large cathedrals in working-class suburbs of big cities.