Near Kharkiv, at the site of the terrorist derailment of Emperor Alexander III's train, returning from the Crimea on 17 October 1888, from which he escaped with his entire family, a hermitage was founded, and in 1894 a magnificent church was built

Near Kharkiv, at the site of the terrorist derailment of Emperor Alexander III's train, returning from the Crimea on 17 October 1888, from which he escaped with his entire family, a hermitage was founded, and in 1894 a magnificent church was built. The Church of Christ the Saviour of the Most Glorious Transfiguration at Borki, in gratitude to Christ for the miraculous salvation of the lives of the Tsar and the imperial family.

After the crash, the roof of the carriage in which the Emperor sat with his wife and children began to collapse, and Alexander III, a man of heroic build, propped it up with his own shoulders and held it so, awaiting help, until everyone had climbed out of the carriage.

The church, a few sazhens from the place where the imperial family was saved, was built to a design by the architect Robert Marfeld. It still ranks among the most beautiful Orthodox churches in the world, although it was destroyed in 1943. But in our own day a copy inspired by Marfeld's design can be seen in Saint Petersburg: the Church of the Epiphany on Gutuyevsky Island by the architect Vasily Kosyakov