20 Roubles Sophia Cathedral. Polotsk

Polotsk's St. Sophia Cathedral is among the oldest stone churches in the former Soviet space, built in the mid-11th century under Vseslav of Polotsk — a prince so feared by his contemporaries that the Tale of Igor's Campaign describes him leaping across the land as a wolf at night. The Polotsk Sophia was a deliberate assertion of the city's rivalry with Novgorod and Kiev, both of which had their own Sophias. It was heavily damaged, rebuilt in Baroque form in the 18th century, and later converted into a concert hall by Soviet authorities.