St. Sampson`s Cathedral is one of the oldest churches of the city, which was created to commemorate the victory at the Battle of Poltava on June 27, 1709 (the memorial day of St. Samson the Hospitable –hence the name of the cathedral). Originally it was a wooden church that was rebuilt in stone later. The name of the architect was lost in times, but it is supposed to be mounted by the project of D. Trezzini. Restoration works started in 1728 after Peter's I death, but were completed only in 1740 thus making the complex a unique combination of pre-Peter times and European architectural forms. One of the city's first cemeteries was established next to the Sampson Cathedral, and became the final resting place for some of St. Petersburg's most famous citizens, such as Jean-Baptiste Leblond and Georg Mattarnovi, sculptor Carlo Bartolomeo Rastrelli, the first Russian economist Ivan Pososhkov, the painters Louis Caravaque and Stephano Torelli, the first president of the Russian Academy of sciences L. Blumentrost. The organizers of the conspiracy against Count Biron, the favorite of empress Anna Ioannovna - Artemy Volynsky, Andrei Khrushchov and Pyotr Yeropkin were executed and also buried on this cemetry.

Looking modest from the outside, the church boasts a stunning interior: the carved and gilded wooden iconostasis created in the best traditions of Russian wood carving of the first half of the 18th century, rare icons, including those by the artists Ivan Kvashnin and Andrei Pospelov; the entrance is decorated with a pediment with a high relief representing angels with trumpets; the open galleries with five apertures each with the gravestone boards built into the walls of the galleries. In front of the cathedral there is a statue of Peter the Great created by sculptor Mark Antokolskiy. The Cathedral is now owned by the state, but since 2002 has been used for religious worship as well.