On March 13 (1), 1881, the people of Emperor Alexander II murdered people on the embankment of the Catherine Canal (the Griboedov Canal).
On this day the emperor went to the inspection of troops in the Mikhailovsky Manezh. After the end of the review, Alexander II drove to his cousin Catherine Mikhailovna for breakfast at the Mikhailovsky Palace. When the Emperor’s coach left the palace’s forester, the bombing was waiting for her on the embankment of the canal. The first to throw a bomb under the carriage of the Tsar Nikolai Rysakov. The explosion damaged the carriage, killed the Cossack from the escort and the peddler boy who was passing by, several people were injured. Alexander II did not suffer and wanted to look at the captured terrorist.
After the explosion, when there were shouts that he was made from the garden, midshipman Erzhikovich, taking 21 sailors, ordered to break the gate with rifle butts and examine the Mikhailovsky garden. They searched, but they found nothing in the garden.
When Alexander II saw the bomber, examined the place of the explosion and was already going to the sleigh, there was a second explosion. Narodovolets Ignaty Grinevitsky threw a bomb under the feet of the emperor. As a result of the explosion, Alexander II was mortally wounded, who will die in half an hour in the Winter Palace, and himself a bomber. During the explosions, about 20 people were injured.
In April 1881, the chapel was erected on the site of the murder of the emperor. Since 1883, the Cathedral of the Resurrection of Christ on Blood is beginning to be erected on this site. For the construction of the temple and temple buildings Grand Duchess Ekaterina Mikhailovna gives part of the Mikhailovsky Garden.
Mikhailovsky garden loses about 8,000 square meters. m. square, destroys a winding path, laid according to the plan of K. Rossi. The garden receives from the eastern part a wonderful cast-iron fence in the Art Nouveau style, designed by architect A.A. Parland.

The last visit of Alexander II to Grand Duchess Ekaterina Mikhailovna March 1, 1881.

Explosion of the bomb thrown by Nikolai Rysakov.

Explosion of the bomb Ignaty Grinevitsky. Illustration from the book “March 1, 1881. Execution of the Emperor Alexander II”, comp. V.E. Kelner, 1991.

Victims of explosions on the embankment of the Catherine Canal. Drawing of an unknown artist.

K. Makovsky “Portrait of Alexander II on his deathbed,” 1881.

Cathedral of the Resurrection of Christ on Blood and a garden fence. Photo of 1905, author S.M. Prokudin-Gorsky.