The destiny of the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour is right out of a Russian novel, covering some of the great events in the country's history. It was a construction project under Alexander I following the victory over Napoleon's armies, then a monumental construction site from 1839 to 1883, after which it was destroyed by Stalin to build the palace of the Soviets, and finally replaced by an open-air swimming pool. The religious revival in the late 1990s and support from Moscow's mayor, Yuri Luzhkov, enabled the identical reconstruction of this monumental building consecrated on 31 December 1999.