THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



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EXTERIOR 01" THE USPENSKI CATHEDRAL (SEE PAGES 379, 39O, AND 393) 

 Showing the shell hole in th? central dome. In this church the Tsars were crowned. 



The Cathedral itself has been badly 

 treated. A shell struck its central dome 

 and, bursting among the five domes of 

 smouldering gold, viciously smote a sec- 

 ond. The hole in the chief dome between 

 the ghostly frescoes of the saints meas- 

 ures 7 feet in length and nearly 6 feet in 

 width. In the drum of the dome is an 

 ominous crack. 



DEVASTATION INSIDE THE CATHEDRAE 



The damage has not even yet been ex- 

 amined in detail bv architects, and it is 



not known, therefore, whether such wan- 

 ton devastation can be repaired. 



The window glass is everywhere 

 smashed or shot through. Within the 

 Cathedral there are strewn about splinters 

 of a 6-inch shell, which exploded there, 

 and fragments of white stone, brick, and 

 rubble. The gold and silver candelabra, 

 those constellations among which all 

 within the church seems to float through 

 space, are bent as by storm ; the Altar and 

 the Sanctuary are strewn with broken 

 glass, brick, and dirt ; the Shrine of the 



