Later Years
Thon's last important commissions were the Nikolaevsky railway stations in Moscow and Saint Petersburg (1849–51). In his design for the stations the architect implemented some of the newest construction technologies. Despite large pieces of steelwork used in the construction, Venetian facades and medieval clock towers of the stations cleverly masked their modern function. Both structures, although extensively reconstructed, are still standing.
After the death of his patron, the Emperor, Thon's failing health prevented him from working on other projects apart from the great cathedral in Moscow. He died at St. Petersburg in 1881.
Even during his lifetime, the more radical of his contemporaries, such as Alexander Herzen, dismissed his architecture as "reactionary manifestation of the tyrant's rule". The Soviet authorities, labelling Thon's churches ugly chests of drawers, systematically destroyed as many of them as possible, including all his churches in St Petersburg and vicinity and the work of his life, the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour. The fall of the Soviet rule in 1991 brought about a renewed interest in the work of the Neo-Russian-Byzantine master.
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Clouds of the west—sun there half an hour
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“I then understood that a man who would have lived but one day could without effort live one hundred years in a prison. He would have enough memories to avoid getting bored.”
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