Avraam Melnikov

Abram or Avraam Melnikov (Авраам Иванович Мельников; 1784—1854) was a Russian Neoclassical architect associated with the late phase of the Empire style. His teachers at the Imperial Academy of Arts included Andreyan Zakharov. He graduated with a gold medal and went to further his studies in Italy. Melnikov became de facto Dean of the Academy in 1831 but was not officially appointed until 1843. Apart from the Imperial School of Jurisprudence and the Old Believer Church of St. Nicholas (later converted into the Arctic and Antarctic Museum), Melnikov's major buildings are in New Russia and the Volga provinces.

The Saviour Cathedral in Rybinsk is based on Melnikov's design that had won the architectural competition for St. Isaac's Cathedral in St. Petersburg. It was also Melnikov who won the competition for the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in Moscow. Neither design was approved by Alexander I of Russia. His successor, Nicholas I, also preferred the Russo-Byzantine designs of Konstantin Thon to the supposedly ponderous Late Neoclassical style espoused by Melnikov.

Major buildings

Arctic and Antarctic Museum Imperial School of Jurisprudence Potemkin Stairs, Odessa Nativity Cathedral, Chişinău Transfiguration Cathedral, Bolhrad Saviour Cathedral, Bolhrad. Semicircular Square, Odessa

Kazan Cathedral, Yaroslavl Saviour Cathedral, Rybinsk Demidov Lyceum, Yaroslavl St. Nicholas Cathedral, Mtsensk The cathedral belltower in Yaroslavl