Transfiguration Cathedral (Novokuznetsk)

The Transfiguration Cathedral in Novokuznetsk, laid in 1792 with the blessing of Varlaam, Archbishop of Tobolsk and Siberia, was built by a team of craftsmen led by the Irkutsk master D. Pochekunin. For a long time, its forty-meter bell tower made the temple the tallest structure in the Kuznetsk Uyezd and one of the tallest in Siberia. The cathedral stood on a high river terrace of the Tom River, and its view opened up when approaching the city, and as the main church of the 14th deanery, it united 20 parishes. In 1907, the building was thoroughly renovated after damage from the 1898 earthquake, with the crosses, onion domes, and iconostasis being gilded.