One day I was driving through an industrial area and suddenly, out of the corner of my eye, somewhere in the gap between two industrial buildings, I noticed the spire of a Gothic cathedral. It was so out of place that my first thought was that I was dreaming! A high wall of some workshop blocked at once the view to that side, and I had no chance to check what I saw - a real Gothic cathedral, or an industrial object, similar in outline to the Gothic architecture.
But I remembered the place. At home I studied the map carefully, and soon I did indeed find a Catholic church on a street in this industrial district, surrounded by factories, workshops, and warehouses.
Church of the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary was built by the famous architect Nikolai Leontievich Benois in the middle of the nineteenth century at the Roman Catholic cemetery. In the beginning, the church building looked modest, and was more like a small chapel. Twenty years later, however, the parishioners decided to expand the building and build a bell tower. The same architect was commissioned to do the work. The consecration of the rebuilt church took place in 1879.
In the 1930s the church was closed and the building was used as a warehouse. The building was returned to the church in 2004. In addition to the church building, there are also several crypts in the old cemetery. Part of the grounds around the church have been landscaped, while another part is currently undergoing landscaping work. I had an unexpected encounter on one of the paths:
The church building was recently repainted, and its white walls noticeably stand out against the surrounding landscape. I found some old photos on the Internet. Before it was red-yellow, and it got lost against the background of industrial buildings of red bricks.
After visiting the church, I decided to walk around the surrounding neighborhood to see if there were other interesting sites hiding nearby. Nothing as interesting was found, but in one of the neighboring passages was an automobile repair shop, next to which an old car was parked for eternity. As I left this industrial area for the street with bus traffic, I looked around again and once again saw the silhouette of the Church of the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, surrounded by workshops and warehouses.
| ā | ā |
|---|---|
| Smartphone | Google Pixel 3a |
| Location | Saint Petersburg, Russia |
This is my entry for the #BeautifulSunday challenge by 
