It was designed by Andrey Voronikhin after St. Peter's Basilica in Rome.
During Napoleon's invasion of in 1812, and the commander-in-chief Mikhail Kutuzov asked Our Lady of Kazan for help. When the war was the cathedral was perceived primarily as a memorial to the Russian victory against Napoleon. Kutuzov himself was interred in the cathedral in 1813; his bronze statue one can see in front of the cathedral.