Selenginsky Spassky Cathedral

Selenginsky Spassky Cathedral is a disused Orthodox church, now standing in ruins on the right bank of the Selenga River, in Old Selenginsk, in the Selenginsky District of the Republic of Buryatia, near the modern settlement of Novoselenginsk. It is one of the few stone monuments left of the former town of Selenginsk, once a notable city on this riverbank. Together with the nearby Chapel of the Holy Cross, the cathedral is the only surviving building of the abandoned settlement.

The fort and the town

The first Russian settlement on this site was the Selenginsky ostrog (fort), founded by the Cossack Gavriil Lovtsov in 1655 on the Selenga River. The fort grew quickly: by the early 18th century Selenginsk had become a notable town by the standards of its time. The English traveler John Bell, who visited in 1719, wrote that the town had about two hundred houses and two churches. By 1745 Selenginsk had become the largest town east of Lake Baikal, with a population estimated at around four thousand people.

Building and destruction of the cathedral

The stone Spassky Cathedral was built to replace earlier wooden churches. Construction began on 14 May 1784 and was completed on 13 June 1789, carried out with the support of Empress Catherine the Great and voluntary donations from the townspeople.

During the Soviet period the cathedral met a tragic fate. Starting in 1936 its crosses were removed, and in the 1950s the monastic cells beside the church were blown up and part of the domes were torn down. The massive walls could not be dismantled for bricks, and the emptied building was eventually turned into a cattle shed.

Today

Since the 1970s the ruins of the Spassky Cathedral and the nearby Chapel of the Holy Cross have remained the only surviving structures of Old Selenginsk — the rest of the town's historical buildings have not survived to this day. The cathedral is listed as a cultural heritage site of regional significance.

Getting there

The cathedral's ruins stand on the right bank of the Selenga River, near the settlement of Novoselenginsk in the Selenginsky District of Buryatia, south of Lake Baikal.