Chesme Church

This small pink-and-white church on the southern edge of Saint Petersburg is an extravagant example of pseudo-Gothic architecture, its walls ribbed with slender vertical mouldings and topped by fluttering pinnacles that give it a striped, lace-like appearance. Built in the late eighteenth century to commemorate a Russian naval victory over the Ottomans at Chesme, it accompanies a former palace of the same name. The playful design reflects Catherine the Great's taste for historicism.