Petersburg was founded by Peter the Great on 16 May, 1703. Since 1710 there is a wooden church in the Vyborg Side in honour of St.Sampsony after the victory at Poltava in 1709. It was the first temple here. St.Sampsony's Church was designed, judging by the style, by D.Trezzini.

    Mikhail Zemtsov, D.Trezzini's follower, had worked a lot as a church architect. St.Sampsony's Church by stone /the second temple/ was finished by M.Zemtsov in 1740 at the same place in the Viborg Side. That new cathedral was built during 1728 - 1740 on the site of a wooden church. It was a time of "Anna's Baroque". Among the parts were three chapels of difference size: the northern Chapel of St. John the Theologian, the Chapel of the Archangel Michael; a chapel on the southern side and the Main Chapel in honour of St. Sampsony.

    The interior of the principal part - St. Sampsony's Chapel - is solemn and majestic. On the western wall, in the triumphal arch there is the mural painting "The Glory of Peter the Great". There Peter I was showed after the Victory at Poltava. According to tradition, the eastern wall was decorated by Russian Orthodox icon-set - Iconostasis. In the five tiers they represented the Sky and God; in the clerestories - the archangels, biblical forefathers and prophets, the Apostis and Evangelists. On the vaults were scenes from the life of Christ and the Virgin. The gilded columns and gilded elaborate cornices form a five-tiered framework. Two centuries ago there was oldest town's Cemetry around the Cathedral: the Orthodox part and the Lutheren one. At present we have got only one monument of the first cemetry: the tombstone of Prince Artemey Volynsky, a prime-minister of the Gouvernement of Emperess Anna loannovna, The St.Sampsony's Cathedral has been worked till the 1939. Afte. it has been used to the warehouse from 1940 to 1970. This Church has been affiliated to the State Museum "St. Isaac's Cathedral" since 1984. After that attempts were made to remove the traces of that unsuccessful restoration.

    At present the Museum has in its possession a collection of first part 18th century icon /over 100 things/ fragments of monumental painting, wooden sculptures and the framwork