In 1552, in honor of the victory of the Ivan Grozny troops in the war for the conquest of Kazan and Astrakhan Khanate was founded church, consecrated in honor of the Holy Trinity. In 1554 Ivan Grozny ordered to build in its place the Cathedral of the Protection of the Virgin with altars commemorating the victory over the Tartars.

The authors of the Vasily Blazhenny Cathedral are Russian architects - Postnik and Barma. There is a legend that Ivan Grozny, seeing the cathedral, was so impressed by its beauty that he ordered the architects blinded so that they could not have anywhere else to build a temple, equal in beauty Pokrovsky Cathedral.

In total in a cathedral are 9 iconostases and 400 icons of centuries representing the best samples of the Novgorod and Moscow art schools.

The walls of the cathedral are decorated with frescoes and oil paintings of centuries.

In the mid 20-ies of the 20 century cathedral received the status of the museum.