The fate of Orthodox churches in the USSR (1929-1944)

Fragments of bas-reliefs with images of saints, left after the destruction of one of the churches.

Tying a rope to a fragment of a statue.

The collapse of the dome of an Orthodox church, the knocked-down dome with a cross slides down the boards and breaks.

The fall of the dome into the courtyard of the church.

Workers tie ropes around the fragments of bas-reliefs before removing them.

A fragment of a broken bas-relief.

Lowering a stone block with a winch.

View of the bell tower of the Trinity Lavra of St.

Sergius before the main bell was removed and sent to be melted down in 1929. People look up.

Workers prepare the bell for dismantling.

Faces of elderly women.

View of part of the Simonov Monastery in the Lenin Sloboda.

Workers of the Proletarsky District of Moscow during a cleanup day to clear the site for the construction of the Palace of Culture on the site of the demolished Assumption Cathedral of the Simonov Monastery on January 22, 1930. Views of Orthodox churches in the Moscow region destroyed by the Nazi invaders.

Sign of the Moscow Regional Museum of Local History in Istra.

View of the destroyed cathedral.

Panorama of the walls of the cathedral in New Jerusalem with damaged frescoes and stucco.

Panorama of the half-ruined monastery in Istra.

Views of Orthodox churches damaged by the Nazi invaders.

Fragments of damaged and half-erased wall frescoes (panorama).

Russian Orthodox churches destroyed by the Germans, panorama of ruins.

Damaged and desecrated monuments of Orthodox architecture.

Damaged decorative stucco inside one of the cathedrals.

Interior view of the cathedral, panorama of the dome.

Panorama of the half-ruined monastery in Istra.

Views of the cathedral blown up by the Germans, internal damage to decorative stucco and frescoes.

Orthodox churches destroyed as a result of military actions, wire frame of the knocked down dome of one of the churches.

Remains of the buildings of churches.

View of the bell tower in the Moscow region.

Views of the building of one of the Orthodox churches with boarded-up windows, converted into a warehouse in the 1950s and 1960s.

Interior views of churches with destroyed wall frescoes, converted into warehouses and workshops (panorama).

View of the church building with demolished domes.

A metalworking workshop inside the former church, two metalworkers at their workbenches.

Interior view of the church converted into a barn.

A fragment of a figurine of a cherub on the floor.

A broken iconostasis with empty frames.

Scales and a wooden shovel inside the church converted into a flour warehouse, icons preserved on the walls (panorama).

The bell tower of one of the churches, converted into a silo tower, panorama of the central part of the church building.

Preparation for blasting operations during the demolition of one of the churches in Nizhny Novgorod in 1929, sappers plant dynamite.

Views of the church prepared for the explosion.

A Red Army soldier knocks the Star of David off the top of the Samara synagogue.

Explosions of church buildings.

Nazi bombers in flight.

Views of the Dnieper in the Kyiv region.

Monument to St.

Vladimir on Vladimirskaya Hill.

Ruins of an Orthodox church destroyed by the Germans, fragments of walls with surviving frescoes.

A damaged wall fresco depicting St.

Theodore Stratelates.