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What and where is the building shown in the picture below?

You an click the thumbnail to enlarge it, if that helps.

OK. Here’s the rather surprising answer to the mystery building question:

You’ve obviously twigged that it’s a Russian Orthodox church from the onion domes. What’s unexpected is the location: Sanremo, in the Italian Riviera, close to the border with France.

It’s the Church of Christ the Saviour, St. Catherine and St. Seraph, erected in 1912 by rich Russian emigrés who liked to winter on the Riviera.
I came across it while on holiday recently, when the town was lit by the warm late afternoon light of “golden hour”.
(Link to the church’s website – in Italian)

The church was designed by Alexey Shchusev, who also designed Lenin’s tomb in Red Square in three breathless days.

The church is undergoing a bit of restoration at present. All the bells were stored in the vestibule, as you can see in the bottom right of this next picture.

( Click on these pictures to enlarge them, please. )

The church has a slightly magical quality with its icing sugar decoration, and it suggests to me something that might easily figure in a landscape dreamed up by Maurits Escher.
Have you ever seen pictures of the churches on Kizhi Island?

More pictures from Liguria and the Italian Riviera coming soon….
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