Grand Choral Synagogue

Born Lev Isakovich Bakhman in Russian Imperial Kishinev (today Chișinău, Moldova), Leon Bakhman was the first Jewish student enrolled at the St. Petersburg Academy of Fine Arts, where he completed his studies in the 1850s. Bakhman worked as a graphic illustrator for many years before collaborating with Ivan Shaposhnikov on the neo-Byzantine and Moorish revival Grand Choral Synagogue in St. Petersburg; though construction ended after eight years in 1888, the synagogue was not consecrated until 1893. The grand, imposing building, which needed permission from the tsar in order to be built, testifies to the prosperity and prominence of the Jewish community in this city, which was outside the Pale of Settlement and for which Jews needed special residence permits.

Born in St. Petersburg, Ivan Ivanovich Shaposhnikov trained at the St. Petersburg Commercial School, and later at the Academy of Arts, where he became an architect and eventually a professor. Shaposhnikov, who was not Jewish, held a post with the Technical Committee of the engineering department of the Russian Empire’s Ministry of War while designing residential, civic, and religious buildings. In addition to the Grand Choral Synagogue developed with Leon Bakhman, Shaposhnikov designed the Preobrazhenskoye Cemetery’s synagogue and operations building (1873).