In 1886, a company located at the end of the lake used to pump and distribute water under pressure to provide the craftsmen’s machines in former times. At night-fall the need was decreasing and in order to diminish the pressure inside the canalizations, a litlle hole existed at the extremity of this pumping factory installed at La Coulouvrenière resulting in a water fountain of a few meters.
In 1891, the City of Geneva decided to install the Jet d’eau (Water Fountain) where it is today, on the Rade, together with electric lighting. But it is only since 1930 that it was permanently lit.
To project half a cubic meter of water per second up to 140 meters high requires two powerful groups of motorpumps representing a global weight of over 16 tons and a total power of close to 1000 kilowatts, fed by an electric tension of 2400 volts. The water is drawn in a circular water-sump and is directed towards an exit pipe where the speed reaches 200 km/h (130 miles per hour).
L'Eglise Russe ( The Russian Church)
View of the church in early morning
The Russian Church is located in the old town of Geneva. It is from the 19th century.
Russians first started coming to Geneva in the 19th century after writer Nikolai Karamsin visited and described the place in one of his travelogues. In 1859, the tolerant authorities of Geneva authorized the growing Russian Orthodox population to build a church.
The Grand Duchess Anna Fyodorovna, sister-in-law of Tsar Alexander I and aunt of Queen Victoria, was a long-time resident of Geneva. Geneva and funded the construction of a Russian Orthodox church in 1863. Built over the remains of a 16th-century Benedictine priory, it was designed by Grimm, a professor at the St-Petersburg Academy, and completed in 1866.
A stately neighborhood (Les Tranchées) developed around the church in the late 19th century, accommodating the many Russians who came to Geneva to study. Since the fall of Communism, Geneva's existing Russian community has been joined by a wave of new-rich Russians, about 3,000 of whom now call the Swiss city home.
The golden domes at midday.
La Cathédrale St-Pierre (St. Peter's Church)
The façade of the cathedral (The Gothic façade of the cathedral was replaced with the present Neoclassical one in 1750.)
The cathedral is best known as the church where John Calvin gave inspiring sermons during the mid-16th century.
The Catholic cathedral of St. Peter became a Protestant church in 1536. John Calvin preached here from 1536 to 1564, and the cathedral became the guiding center of Protestantism. Like reformers all over Europe, Calvin's followers stripped Geneva's cathedral of its altars, statues, paintings and furniture. Only the stained glass windows remained.
The spire of the cathedral
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