Church of St Sergius of Radonezh in Tashkent, consecrated in 1897 and demolished in 1932

Until 1932 Tashkent had a church of Saint Sergius of Radonezh. It was built at the state's expense on the initiative of the Governor-General of Turkestan, Baron Alexandr Vrevsky, and the construction cost 90,000 roubles. The church stood on Pushkinskaya Street, at the junction with Assakinskaya. Its parish was assigned 358 houses, home to about two and a half thousand Orthodox townspeople.

The foundation stone was laid in July 1893, and in April 1897 Nikon, Bishop of Turkestan, consecrated the church. It was built in the pseudo-Russian style, which imitated the architecture of pre-Petrine Rus'. The church held 600 people, and the bell tower stood under the same roof as the church. The largest of the ten bells weighed 310 poods, that is, about five tonnes. The iconostasis was brought from the Trinity Lavra of St Sergius.

In 1918 the rector of the church, Archpriest Viktor Motalev, was shot. In the 1920s the surgeon and bishop Luka Voyno-Yasenetsky, who was later canonised, served in the church. In the spring of 1930 the authorities decided to close the church. Luka wrote in his memoirs that he then intended to commit self-immolation, but was soon arrested. The crosses were removed from the church, a five-pointed star was set up on it, and a sign reading “Metalworkers' Club” was hung. In November 1932 the building was demolished