St. Basil's Cathedral says "Never mind stone or concrete colored churches, if you have any color paint it'll go somewhere."
(richard-seaman.com)
There's also the intimidating but probably false tale that Tsar Ivan the Terrible, who ordered the church, blinded the architect so he could never create something more beautiful.
Another, perhaps true, story is from the days when the Soviet Union was plowing huge avenues through old Moscow. City party boss Lazar Kaganovich was showing Stalin a model of the city, and took out the church to see how Red Square would look without it. Stalin immediately exclaimed, "Lazar, put it back!"
When
Stalin wants to save a church, you know it's one badass church.
(I also associate it with this famous painting by Vasily Surikov,
Morning of the Execution of the Streltsy, which is both a poignant image of Russia's often brutal history, and a vivid depiction of the severe consequences of crossing Peter the Great.)
(paintingspy.com)
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