Before the arrival of the Cossacks, a pagan temple of the Tatars was located in the current place of the chapel. The Cossacks placed on the top of the mountain a watchtower to notify citizens about hostile raids.
In 1805 a merchant named Novikov constructed a wooden chapel on that place out of gratitude for being saved from a whirlpool of rapids. Another version about the construction of the building states that the local inhabitants built the chapel due to the deliverance of their ancestors from their enemies. However this building became decrepit after some time.
In 1852 the bishop of Tomsky, Afanasy, gave permission to the city Duma for the building of a stone chapel. Between 1852 and 1855 it was built by architects Ya. Alfeev and Ya. Nabalov from the funds of the prominent owner of gold mines and patron of art, Pyotr Kuznetsov. In 1887 the Russian scientist and radio inventor Aleksander Popov observed the solar eclipse from the chapel. In memory of this in 1977, on the East front of the building a granite memorial plaque was placed.
The chapel was abandoned during the Soviet era. Between 1973 and 1975 the building was restored with the projects of A.S. Brusnikin.
In 2014 the chapel was recoloured to green, according to its historical colour.
_front.jpg)
