St Isaac's Cathedral is located close to the end of Nevsky Prospekt opposite Aleksandrovsky Gardens.  St Isaac's is the largest cathedral in the city and took over 40 years to build, between 1818 and 1858.  It was built in a neo-classical style incorporating 112 red granite columns, twelve statues of angels and a 101.5 metre tall gold-plated dome.  It is dedicated to St Isaac of Dalmatia on whose feast day Peter the Great was born, and the current version of the cathedral is the fourth shrine to be dedicated to St Isaac to stand here.  The first such church was consecrated in 1707.  

  In 1931 the cathedral was closed and turned into the Museum of the History of Religion and Atheism, but this was then moved to the Our Lady of Kazan Cathedral in 1937.  St Isaac's remained open as a museum.  After the fall of the Soviet union a small part of the cathedral was returned to the Orthodox Church which holds services there.  The remainder of the cathedral remains open as the State Museum of St Isaac's Cathedral, part of the Museum of Four Cathedrals.  A visit to the cathedral allows you to walk up to the dome to enjoy great views of St Petersburg and see the interior which is decorated with frescoes and reliefs. Also inside is a bust of its architect Auguste de Montferrand which is made out of the materials used to build St Isaacs'.

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