Konstantin Thon in the context of "Neo-Byzantine architecture in the Russian Empire"

Russian-Byzantine architecture (Russo-Byzantine architecture; Russian: русско-византийский стиль) is a revivalist direction in Russian architecture and decorative and applied arts, based on the interpretation of the forms of Byzantine and Old Russian architecture. As part of eclecticism, the style could be combined with other styles.

The style originated in the Russian Empire in the first half of the 19th century. The founder of this style is considered to be Konstantin Thon. Formed in the early 1830s as an entire direction, the Russian-Byzantine style was inextricably linked with the concept of nationality, expressing the idea of cultural self-sufficiency of Russia, as well as its political and religious continuity in relation to Byzantine Empire. In a narrow sense, the Russian-Byzantine style referred as the style of Konstantin Thon, common in the second third of the 19th century, and post Thon style, that began in the 1850s and more similar to the Byzantine architecture, called the Neo-Byzantine style.