"Lies are the religion of slaves and masters … Truth is the god of a free man!"
Maksim Gorky. At the bottom
History and documents. A cathedral is being built in the center of the city of Penza. Moreover, the construction has entered the final phase - the interior decoration is in progress with marble. Outside, everything is already finished. And the surrounding buildings of the temple, and the bell towers, and the square, and the entrances. The monument to Karl Marx standing on the square was found a new place nearby. They did not break it. Moreover, the cathedral is being built on the old site. He has already been here. Moreover, it was built a long time ago. The construction took place in 1790-1824 and ended with the construction of the most grandiose and spectacular building in Penza - the Spassky Cathedral, after which the square became known as Cathedral. In 1923, the Spassky Cathedral was closed, the next year it was given over to the archives, and the square was named Soviet. In 1934 the cathedral was blown up. The destruction of the Spassky Cathedral in Penza is one of the most disgusting events in the history of Penza, and today we will tell you about it.
But the story will have to start not with the history of the cathedral, but again with archival documents. While working in the Penza city archive, I came across a most curious historical document. It can be said that it is completely unique - the Penza newspaper "The Voice of the Prisoner". How many years it was released, when its release began and when it ended, it was not yet possible to find out. But what is important above all is the very fact of the publication of a printed newspaper in prison and, of course, its content. This is the real spirit of the era. After all, these people, who were sitting behind bars, breathed the air of a completely new Russia. In many ways, they already looked at life in a new way. That is, it is a very interesting source. However, an anti-religious topic caught my attention in the newspaper. It must be said that in the 1920s, the Union of Atheists was active in Penza, and the central newspapers Atheists and Atheists at the Bench were distributed, in a word, there was enough anti-religious propaganda. Articles on anti-religious topics were regularly published in the newspaper Rabochaya Penza, and when the believers installed a searchlight on the bell tower of the Peter and Paul Church (to illuminate Easter night), the newspaper called it "unheard of insolence." And now it turned out that the newspaper "Voice of the Prisoner" published materials on anti-religious topics, moreover, written by the prisoners themselves.
It was then that it occurred to me to see what was written in this newspaper about the explosion of the Savior Cathedral. After all, this was an event! Not that some kind of searchlight for Easter … And also see how it was reflected in the documents of the city committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks). I looked at the local history materials and ran into the first difficulty. It was nowhere indicated when the cathedral was blown up. In 1934, yes! But when exactly? I went to the public relations department of the Penza Patriarchate, introduced myself, explained what and why, and there they told me that the cathedral was blown up in August, but it is not known what date.
And how do you order this to be understood? After all, this is not an old pumping station, which was taken and demolished - this is a cathedral in the center of the city, and a huge building. The explosion of the cathedral ("the enterprise for the production of opium for the people") is a grandiose event! And neither the day nor the time of this action is known. Here's how: they cooked and hid the spoons! There is no other way to put it.
Well, it's good that I found out at least a month. I ordered Rabochaya Penza for 1934, flipped through all the issues for August. Empty! There is NOTHING about the explosion of the cathedral. As if it never existed.
Well, okay, I went to the party archive. Raised materials for 1934. It’s empty. They discuss thieves, plunders of public property, and various other issues. But no one raised the question of the explosion of the cathedral, and throughout the year it was not discussed at the level of the city committee (there was no regional committee then, Penza was part of the Tambov region). Where and how did the command for the explosion come from? Where did the explosives come from, who planted it?
But most importantly, why did the newspaper not report this? Since we are fighting religion, then here is an excellent reason for you to write that we, Bolsheviks, irreconcilable fighters against religious intoxication, consistently implementing the ideas of Marx - Lenin - Stalin, are destroying this bulwark of obscurantism, and let the dawn of reason shine over Penza! Well, something like that … But no, everything was done secretly, thieves …
The law of PR is as follows: since there is no official information, it is replaced by rumors. And naturally, after the explosion, they didn’t tell anything about him. They have survived in the memories of the Penza residents to this day. They say that a lot of people came. But there was a lot of police. Therefore, people were silent. Most were crying. First, the bell was dismantled. They removed the fasteners, and he remained hanging on one rope. All the workers refused to do it. We started looking for a volunteer. One local alcoholic volunteered for three quarters of vodka (9 liters, not bad, though!). When the bell fell, it touched the ceilings, and there was such a loud bang that many people even got stuffy. And the drunkard fell unconscious, he was concussed. And three days later he died!
The cadets of the Demolition School were brought in to blow up the cathedral. For all the cadets, this was a shock, but for military people, an order is an order, it is not supposed to discuss it. At the base of the cathedral in the walls, which were more than three meters thick, pits were drilled and ammonal charges were laid. And the whole area was surrounded by militia. The first explosion thundered, the pits were knocked out, but the building could not be destroyed. The charges were doubled, but that didn't help either. Only on the third attempt, the cathedral collapsed into huge boulders. They did not bother to remove them until 1947! And they were also undermined, the masonry was such strength.
It was said that after the explosion of the cathedral, a ghost in a white shroud began to walk around the square. Three security officers were sent to catch the ghost. They did not catch him, but they saw how he suddenly appeared near the wall of the governor's house and then seemed to sink into the ground at the site of the former monument to Karl Marx.
In general, things were done worse than ever and only showed the people the weakness of the existing government. Everything had to be done quickly. Interrupt the bell cable with a stick of dynamite, do not spare the explosives for detonation (pre-practice at some church outside the city!), In order to detonate at once. And the main thing is to immediately remove all the destruction so that nothing reminds that the cathedral was here at all. So as in the song: "There she was, and no!" Because nothing is stronger than the Bolshevik Party and their iron Bolshevik will!
But the most important thing is, of course, the cowardly suppression of the fact of the explosion of the cathedral in the regional newspaper. An article about the fact that celebrating Easter is bad - here it is, but a joyful article that another dope nest in the country has ceased to exist has not appeared! What, the journalists were afraid that their hands would dry up? Or that the believers in a dark alley will stuff their muzzles?
Well, the modern history of the cathedral began in 2010. On April 7, the first stone was laid in the foundation, and on February 28, 2011, the foundation for the bell tower was poured with concrete. In December 2014, the main dome of the cathedral was installed. To date, the construction of the cathedral together with a bell tower 82.5 meters high (with a 27-storey building) has already been completed. Even the basements are seven meters high! It remains to lay out the walls with granite panels, lay the stone floor, and finish the basement and first floors.
“The Spassky Cathedral is built of 2.2 million bricks. It can accommodate almost three thousand parishioners,”the information department of the Penza diocese told me.
Interior finishing works are the most painstaking, laborious and costly. According to experts, in terms of the volume of investments, the finishing will surpass the construction itself!
“Now you will not see anything interesting, everything inside the temple is in the woods, plastering is in progress. We plan to complete this work this summer. Only after plastering will the artists be able to start painting the church, - said the artist-designer and icon painter Andrei Timofeev, who is engaged in the interior of the cathedral. - Of course, the design will be carried out according to all the canons. Unfortunately, no sketches of the decoration of the old temple, which stood at this place until 1934, have survived. There are fragmentary 4-5 of Makarov's watercolors, that's all. Unfortunately, the old painting cannot be restored on them”.
According to him, Moscow icon painters are already ready to get down to business and are now developing design sketches. The cathedral will have a unique marble floor: made of natural stone, the shades of which will be selected among marbles in various parts of the world.
“It will be a patterned floor, perhaps it will be ordered in China or Italy,” continues Andrey Timofeev. - On the walls, we decided to make panels 1, 5-2 meters high, from natural or artificial stone. It all depends on funding."
Details "for gold" will be really gold. But the domes, although they look golden, are actually sheathed with golden sheets of a very strong and durable material - nitrotitanium. And the cathedral itself will be filled with light and air. And this is indeed so, and even though now it is filled to the brim with scaffolding.
