st. isaac's cathedral is one of the four most large in the world, its patrons are isaac of dalmatia and byzantium saint, born on the same day as peter the great, that 'se appropriate name. of course, this is not the first isaac's in our city, the fourth, this is the fourth isaac's church, that is, there were three more isaac's churches that have not survived to this day. and the first, of course, was small, modest, wooden, according to legend, from a drawing barn, it was literally built and consecrated already in 1707, you know the date of the foundation of st. petersburg, 1703. but the project of the current cathedral was signed by the emperor alexander i, much later, in 1818, and exactly 40 years later, under alexander ii, the building was completed and consecrated. the most notable elements of the cathedral are the 112 granite monolithic columns, they were manually chipped from the common layer in the town of pyotr laks, near vyborg. this manual method of chipping out columns was invented by the remarkable, brilliant stonemason samson sukhanov. and then each column was transported along the neva, polished by hand, installed by hand using wooden pre