After the end of the Cold War, the coastal resort towns north of Alicante became popular with Russians, both ex-pats and vacation home holders. But until 2007, many of the Russians in the area didn’t have a suitable place to worship.

A Russian entrepreneur decided to change that, funding the construction of Spain’s first purpose-built Russian Orthodox Church. The country had a few other Russian Orthodox Churches, but they had all been opened in converted buildings.

The magnificent structure at Altea is built largely from wood and was designed to be a copy of a 17th-century church in Russia. Its materials were imported from the Ural Mountains and assembled by a number of specialized Russian craftsmen.

The church interior is adorned with the iconography you’d expect to find within a Russian church. Its exterior boasts some great artwork in addition to the golden, onion-shaped domes common within Orthodox architecture.