Russia

The most important monastery of the Russian Orthodox Church, founded in 1337 by St. Sergius of Radonezh about 70 km northeast of Moscow. The Trinity Cathedral begun in 1422 houses the saint's relics, the Assumption Cathedral was built from 1559 to 1585, and the Baroque bell tower rises about 88 meters. Elevated to the rank of Lavra in 1744 and inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1993.

UNESCO World Heritage Site (Architectural Ensemble of the Trinity Sergius Lavra in Sergiev Posad, 1993)Troitse-Sergieva Lavra, 141300 Sergiev Posad, Moskovskaya oblast

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Russia's iconic Orthodox sanctuary standing at the southern end of Red Square outside the Spasskaya Tower of the Moscow Kremlin, formally titled the Cathedral of the Intercession of the Most Holy Theotokos on the Moat, built from 1555 to 1561 by order of Tsar Ivan IV (traditionally attributed to architects Barma and Postnik Yakovlev) to commemorate the capture of Kazan and Astrakhan. Comprising a central tent-roofed church rising 47.5 meters surrounded by eight chapels crowned with polychrome onion domes and a tenth chapel added in 1588 over the tomb of Saint Vasily (Basil) the Blessed, it was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1990.

UNESCO World Heritage Site (Kremlin and Red Square, Moscow, 1990), Federal Cultural Heritage Site of RussiaRed Square, 7, Moscow, 109012, Russia (Красная площадь, 7, Москва)

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The Patriarchal Cathedral of the Russian Orthodox Church standing on the northern bank of the Moskva River, rising 103 meters to the tip of its central cross with a capacity of 10,000 worshippers. Originating in Tsar Alexander I's manifesto of December 25, 1812, in thanksgiving for Russia's deliverance in the Patriotic War of 1812, the Russo-Byzantine sanctuary designed by Konstantin Thon was built from 1839 and consecrated on May 26, 1883, demolished with explosives on December 5, 1931, and reconstructed in white marble to its original design between 1994 and August 19, 2000.

Patriarchal Cathedral of the Russian Orthodox ChurchVolkhonka Street, 15, Moscow, 119019, Russia (улица Волхонка, 15, Москва)

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Quần thể kiến trúc gỗ Chính Thống giáo Nga trên đảo Kizhi giữa hồ Onega, nổi bật với Nhà thờ Biến Hình (1714) cao 37 mét gồm 22 mái vòm củ hành lợp ván gỗ dương lắp ghép mộng gỗ không dùng đinh sắt ở khung chịu lực, đi cặp cùng Nhà thờ Đức Mẹ Che Chở 9 mái vòm (1764) và tháp chuông gỗ bát giác (1862).

Di sản Thế giới UNESCO (1990)Kizhi Island, Lake Onega, Medvezhyegorsky District, Republic of Karelia, 186314, Russia (остров Кижи, Республика Карелия)

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Ngôi đại tự Phật giáo Kim Cương thừa cực bắc của châu Âu bên bờ sông Bolshaya Nevka tại Saint Petersburg, khởi dựng giai đoạn 1909 tới 1915 theo tâm nguyện của Đức Khambo Lama Agvan Dorzhiev với sự kết hợp giữa kiến trúc tu viện Tây Tạng và phong cách đá hoa cương Art Nouveau phương Bắc.

Di sản văn hóa liên bang NgaPrimorsky Prospekt, 91, Primorsky District, Saint Petersburg, 197374, Russia (Приморский проспект, 91, Санкт-Петербург)

Photo: Vadim Tolbatov, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons

The mother church of Muscovite Russia standing on Cathedral Square inside the Moscow Kremlin, built between 1475 and 1479 by Bolognese Renaissance architect Aristotele Fioravanti for Grand Prince Ivan III as the coronation sanctuary of the Russian Tsars and the burial place of the Metropolitans and Patriarchs of Moscow.

UNESCO World Heritage Site (Kremlin and Red Square, Moscow, 1990, Ref. 545) and Federal Cultural Heritage Site of the Russian FederationSobornaya Square, Moscow Kremlin, Moscow 103132, Russian Federation

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A fortified royal women's monastery on a sweeping bend of the Moskva River founded in 1524 by Grand Prince Vasily III in honor of the Smolensk Icon of the Mother of God, celebrated as the supreme masterpiece of seventeenth-century Moscow Baroque architecture and inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2004.

UNESCO World Heritage Site (Ensemble of the Novodevichy Convent, 2004, Ref. 1097) and Federal Cultural Heritage Site of the Russian FederationNovodevichy Proyezd, 1, Khamovniki District, Moscow 119435, Russian Federation

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An exuberant Russian Revival memorial sanctuary rising beside the Griboyedov Canal in Saint Petersburg, erected between 1883 and 1907 by architect Alfred Parland and Archimandrite Ignaty Malyshev with nine enameled and gilded domes and over 7,000 square meters of monumental mosaics covering its entire interior.

UNESCO World Heritage Site (Historic Centre of Saint Petersburg and Related Groups of Monuments, 1990, Ref. 540) and Federal Cultural Heritage MonumentGriboyedov Canal Embankment, 2B, Tsentralny District, Saint Petersburg 191186, Russian Federation

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The monumental Neoclassical cathedral of imperial Saint Petersburg built over forty years from 1818 to 1858 by French architect Auguste de Montferrand in honor of Saint Isaac of Dalmatia, soaring 101.5 meters with a cast-iron dome gilded with over 100 kilograms of gold and 112 monolithic red granite columns.

UNESCO World Heritage Site (Historic Centre of Saint Petersburg, 1990, Ref. 540) and State Museum-Monument of the Russian FederationSaint Isaac's Square, 4, Saint Petersburg 190000, Russian Federation

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The active mother cathedral of the Russian Orthodox Diocese of Saint Petersburg standing on Nevsky Prospekt, built from 1801 to 1811 by architect Andrey Voronikhin with a sweeping semicircular colonnade of 96 Corinthian columns of Pudost limestone, enshrining the revered Icon of Our Lady of Kazan and the tomb of Field Marshal Mikhail Kutuzov.

UNESCO World Heritage Site (Historic Centre of Saint Petersburg, 1990, Ref. 540) and Diocesan Cathedral of the Metropolis of Saint PetersburgKazanskaya Square, 2, Nevsky Prospekt, Saint Petersburg 191186, Russian Federation

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The foundational twelfth-century white-stone mother cathedral of northeastern Rus perched high above the Klyazma River, begun in 1158 by Grand Prince Andrei Bogolyubsky and expanded to five domes in 1185 by Vsevolod the Big Nest, preserving the only documented monumental frescoes (1408) by Saint Andrei Rublev.

UNESCO World Heritage Site (White Monuments of Vladimir and Suzdal, 1992, Ref. 633) and Diocesan Cathedral of the Metropolis of VladimirSobornaya Square, 1, Vladimir, Vladimir Oblast 600000, Russian Federation

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The supreme lyrical masterpiece of twelfth-century Russian white-stone architecture, erected in 1165 by Grand Prince Andrei Bogolyubsky on a stone-paved artificial mound in the water meadows at the confluence of the Nerl and Klyazma rivers in memory of his son Prince Izyaslav.

UNESCO World Heritage Site (White Monuments of Vladimir and Suzdal, 1992, Ref. 633) and National Heritage Treasure of RussiaBogolyubovsky Meadow, Bogolyubovo, Suzdalsky District, Vladimir Oblast 601270, Russian Federation

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A monumental northern monastic citadel standing just 165 kilometers south of the Arctic Circle on the Solovetsky Islands in the White Sea, founded in the 1420s to 1430s by Saints Zosima, Savvaty, and German and renowned for its giant glacial-boulder fortress walls, sixteenth-century whitewashed cathedrals, and interlinked freshwater canal system.

UNESCO World Heritage Site (Cultural and Historic Ensemble of the Solovetsky Islands, 1992, Ref. 632) and Stavropegic Monastery of the Russian Orthodox ChurchSolovetsky Settlement, Solovetsky Islands, White Sea, Arkhangelsk Oblast 164070, Russian Federation

Photo: Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons

The flagship congregational mosque of the Republic of Tatarstan and a centerpiece of the UNESCO-listed Kazan Kremlin overlooking the confluence of the Volga and Kazanka rivers, inaugurated on June 24, 2005 for Kazan's Millennium to honor the sixteenth-century scholar and spiritual leader Sayyid Qol Sharif, featuring a 39-meter Kazan Crown dome and four 58-meter white Ural marble minarets.

Principal Congregational Mosque of the Republic of Tatarstan and part of the Historic and Architectural Complex of the Kazan Kremlin (UNESCO World Heritage Site, 2000, Ref. 980)Kazan Kremlin, Building 13, 420014 Kazan, Republic of Tatarstan, Russian Federation

Photo: amanderson2, CC BY 2.0, Wikimedia Commons

The supreme spiritual center of the Buddhist Traditional Sangha of Russia and seat of the Pandito Khambo Lama, founded in 1945 in the Ivolga valley steppe near Lake Baikal and Ulan-Ude in the Republic of Buryatia, home to Russia's first Buddhist university and the world-renowned imperishable lotus-seated body of the twelfth Pandito Khambo Lama Dashi-Dorzho Itigelov (who entered meditation in 1927).

Central Headquarters of the Buddhist Traditional Sangha of Russia (Seat of the Pandito Khambo Lama) and Cultural Heritage Monument of the Russian FederationVerkhnyaya Ivolga Village, Ivolginsky District, 671050 Republic of Buryatia (36 km southwest of Ulan-Ude), Russian Federation

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The premier Vietnamese Buddhist temple and ancestral cultural sanctuary in the Russian Federation, situated at the Hanoi-Moscow Multifunctional Complex (Incentra) on Yaroslavskoye Shosse bordering Losiny Ostrov National Park in northeastern Moscow, featuring an outdoor wooden replica of Hanoi's One Pillar Pagoda over a lotus pond alongside an indoor Three Jewels sanctuary honoring Buddha Shakyamuni, Buddhist Emperor Tran Nhan Tong, and the Hung Kings.

Flagship Vietnamese Buddhist and Cultural Sanctuary in the Russian Federation at the Hanoi-Moscow Complex (Incentra)Hanoi-Moscow Multifunctional Complex (Incentra), Yaroslavskoye Shosse 146, North-Eastern Administrative Okrug (SVAO), 129347 Moscow, Russian Federation

Photo: Artyom Svetlov, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons

The grassroots Pure Land Buddhist prayer hall and lay devotional chapters (Dao trang) serving tens of thousands of Vietnamese merchants and workers around the Sadovod and Moscow-Lyublino wholesale markets in southeastern Moscow, established between 2009 and 2012 under the Vietnamese Buddhist Association in the Russian Federation for evening sutra chanting, vegetarian charity kitchens, and compassionate end-of-life prayers for overseas compatriots.

Community Pure Land Prayer Hall and Humanitarian Lay Chapters of the Vietnamese Buddhist Association in the Russian Federation (South-Eastern Moscow)Verkhniye Polya Street and 14th km MKAD (Sadovod Trade Complex and Moscow-Lyublino Trade Center), South-Eastern Administrative Okrug (YuVAO), 109429 Moscow, Russian Federation

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The largest Roman Catholic church in the Russian Federation and the metropolitan cathedral of the Archdiocese of the Mother of God at Moscow on Malaya Gruzinskaya Street, built between 1901 and 1911 in soaring red-brick Neo-Gothic style by architect Foma Bogdanovich-Dvorzhetsky, solemnly reconsecrated in 1999 after sixty years of Soviet closure, and serving today as the beloved spiritual home of the Vietnamese Catholic Community in Moscow.

Metropolitan Cathedral of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of the Mother of God at Moscow and Cultural Heritage Monument of the Russian FederationUlitsa Malaya Gruzinskaya 27/13, Presnensky District, Central Administrative Okrug (TsAO), 123056 Moscow, Russian Federation

Photo: Sergey Norin from Moscow, Russia, CC BY 2.0, Wikimedia Commons

A historic Stavropegic Russian Orthodox women's monastery founded in 1635 by Tsar Mikhail Fyodorovich Romanov in Moscow's Taganka district, revered across Russia and among the Vietnamese diaspora as the resting place of the relics and miracle-working icon of Saint Blessed Matrona of Moscow (1881 to 1952), where thousands of pilgrims queue daily with odd-numbered bouquets of fresh flowers.

Stavropegic Women's Monastery Directly Under the Patriarch of Moscow and All Rus' and Cultural Heritage Monument of the Russian FederationTaganskaya Ulitsa 58, Tagansky District, Central Administrative Okrug (TsAO), 109147 Moscow, Russian Federation

Photo: Artyom Svetlov, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons

The largest Buddhist temple (Khurul) in the Russian Federation and all of Europe, rising 63 meters across seven Mandala levels in Elista, capital of the Republic of Kalmykia (Europe's only Buddhist-majority region), consecrated on December 27, 2005 after a site blessing by the 14th Dalai Lama, enshrining a 9-meter gold-leaf Buddha Shakyamuni statue surrounded by 108 white stupas and 17 pagodas of the Great Nalanda Masters.

Central Buddhist Monastery (Central Khurul) of the Republic of Kalmykia and Largest Buddhist Temple in Russia and EuropeUlitsa Yuriya Klykova 63, 358000 Elista, Republic of Kalmykia, Russian Federation

Photo: Oleg-Akamatsu, CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons