Issued in the final year before the Soviet Union's dissolution, this piece belongs to a series celebrating Russian architectural heritage — a quietly ironic project for a state that had spent decades converting, demolishing, or repurposing Orthodox churches. The Church of the Archangel Gabriel in Moscow, better known as the Menshikov Tower, was commissioned by Peter the Great's powerful favorite Alexander Menshikov around 1707 and briefly stood taller than the Ivan the Great Bell Tower in the Kremlin, which was legally prohibited from being surpassed. That distinction ended when lightning struck it in 1723.
Issued in the final year before the Soviet Union's dissolution, this piece belongs to a series celebrating Russian architectural heritage — a quietly ironic project for a state that had spent decades converting, demolishing, or repurposing Orthodox churches. The Church of the Archangel Gabriel in Moscow, better known as the Menshikov Tower, was commissioned by Peter the Great's powerful favorite Alexander Menshikov around 1707 and briefly stood taller than the Ivan the Great Bell Tower in the Kremlin, which was legally prohibited from being surpassed. That distinction ended when lightning struck it in 1723.