In this beautiful capture, we see the entranceway to the Saint Petersburg Mosque in St Petersburg, Russia. When the mosque opened in 1913, it was the largest in Russia. Its minarets reach 49 meters (161 ft) in height and the impressive dome rises 39 meters (128 ft) high. The mosque is situated in downtown St Petersburg and can accommodate up to five thousand worshippers.

Worshippers are separated by gender during a worship service; females worship on the first floor, while the males worship on the ground floor. The Mosque was closed to worshippers from 1940 to 1956, and was even made into a warehouse during the Second World War. [Source: Wikipedia]

The proper name for this particular opening is a ‘portal‘. It is a general term describing an opening in the walls of a building, gate or fortification, and especially a grand entrance to an important structure. Doors, metal gates or portcullis in the opening can be used to control entry or exit. The surface surrounding the opening may be made of simple building materials or decorated with ornamentation. [Source: Wikipedia]

To see a full-size image of this incredible photograph click here for a 2953×4583 image (it’s 20.62mb!). Unfortunately I had to compress the image to reduce the massive file size, so be sure to click through for a much higher quality image.