St. Nicholas Cathedral
A dome on Mykolaivska Square — from a Cossack chapel to a cathedral.
The first Saint Nicholas Church appeared on the square that took its name as a wooden Cossack chapel; the stone church that replaced it was raised in 1764 in the Ukrainian Baroque, with the characteristic triple-domed silhouette, and one of central Kharkiv's principal squares grew up around it. By the mid-19th century the church could no longer hold its congregation, and between 1886 and 1896 it was taken down and rebuilt — in the Byzantine-Russian style, with a massive five-domed bulk and a tall bell tower. The new Saint Nicholas Cathedral became the dominant spiritual silhouette of imperial Kharkiv.
Through the turn of the 20th century Mykolaivska Square revolved around its two principal buildings — the cathedral on one side and Beketov's Stock Exchange on the other. Here the children of the merchant elite were baptised, religious processions filled the square on feast days, pilgrims from the governorate arrived for the great holy days. Alongside its spiritual life the square held the commercial energy of the centre — concerts, fairs, trading and political assemblies.
After the Soviet relocation of the Ukrainian SSR capital to Kharkiv, the centre of the city was reshaped to the new government's programme. In 1930 the Saint Nicholas Cathedral was dynamited as part of the early Stalinist anti-religious campaign; on the site of the church a public space was laid out with a tribune for Soviet rallies and one of Kharkiv's first free public canteens. The square itself was renamed Tevelev Square, later Soviet Ukraine Square, and finally — in independent Ukraine — Constitution Square. The cathedral was gone before the bombings of 1941—1943 ever reached the centre, leaving no material trace behind.
