Ascension Cathedral
Timber Orthodox cathedral of 1907 in Panfilov Park, 56 metres tall and built without nails.
Built between 1904 and 1907 in the centre of what was then Verny, the cathedral is one of the tallest wooden buildings anywhere, rising 56 metres to the tip of its bell tower. It was raised from Tian Shan spruce, assembled without nails, on a frame designed to flex. The choice was deliberate: the town had been levelled by an earthquake in 1887, and the engineer Andrei Zenkov worked the lessons of that disaster into the structure. The painted exterior is a mix of Russian revival and eclectic detail.
The design held. When a very severe earthquake struck in 1911 the cathedral swayed but stood, losing only the cross from its bell tower. After the revolution the building was taken over by the state, housing the Central State Museum of the Kazakh republic and later radio transmitters in the tower. Services resumed in 1997 following restoration work begun in the 1970s, and a further reconstruction ran from 2017 until October 2020. It is now the cathedral of the Orthodox metropolitanate of Kazakhstan.
Highlights
- One of the tallest wooden buildings in the world at 56 metres
- Assembled from Tian Shan spruce without nails
- Survived the great earthquake of 1911 almost intact
- Reopened in October 2020 after a three-year reconstruction
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