Permit from the emperor By 1870, there were about ten Jewish houses of worship in Saint Petersburg; however, there was no synagogue in which the Jewish community as a whole could meet in what was then the capital of the
Russian Empire. The construction of the Grand Synagogue was made possible after Tsar
Alexander II granted permission on 1 September 1869 in response to a request from the wealthy Russian Jewish philanthropist
Joseph Günzburg (Evzel' Gavriilovich Gintsburg) and the first chairman of the St. Petersburg Jewish Community, entrepreneur and railroad developer
Samuel Polyakov. Joseph's son
Horace was chairman of the Saint Petersburg Jewish Community in 1869–1909 and supervised the construction of the synagogue.
Reconstruction and renaming After a 5 million donation by the
Safra family in 1999, the synagogue was reconstructed between 2000 and 2005. In honor of the philanthropic support, the synagogue was renamed
The Edmond J. Safra Grand Choral Synagogue, although it is more commonly known in Russian as
Bolshaya Sinagoga or the "Grand Synagogue". In 2005 a new
mikvah was built from a design by Israeli architect M. Gorelik. The new mikvah was inaugurated on 19 April 2005.
Anti-Semitic attacks On 5 May 2012, a swastika was spray-painted on the synagogue's fence. == Gallery ==