One of the strangest sights in Soviet Moscow was the Moskva open-air swimming pool, steaming gently against a snowy background, in the place where imperial Russia's grandest cathedral once dominated the landscape.
Now the vast series of interlocking pools has been drained.Post-Soviet city officials and the patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church have agreed to shut it down for good.
In its place, they will rebuild the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, demolished on the orders of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin in the 1930s.
"This should be a symbol of repentance, of atonement for all the sins committed on Russian soil in the last 70 years (of Soviet power)," Moscow's head architect Leonid Vavakin said in an interview.
"If we are having difficulties in our lives today, it all stems from the fact that our traditions and faith were broken."
Nostalgia for a lost past is widespread in post-Soviet Russia. The Orthodox Church is enjoying a revival. Hundreds of thousands of Russians, including Vavakin, have been baptized since the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. Russia's new-rich entrepreneurs regularly contribute money to the church.
Vavakin said the new cathedral, built from old plans of its predecessor but including an underground network of conference halls and a parking garage, should be ready within three years.
"The use of modern building methods gives grounds to be sure that by 1997, in time for Moscow's 450th birthday, the basic work of the church will be completed," he said.
"The decorations might not be quite ready, the artistic work, but the consecration of this church and the first service can already take place."
Fund-raising has started. Russian emigres will be asked to donate money, although Vavakin said no state funds had yet been allocated to cover the estimated $200 million bill.