Russia - one photo per post

[AlekseyVT]

4.13. THE CHURCH OF PETER AND PAUL ON SINICHYA HILL (1185-1192):

Some distance to the west of where the Resurrection monastery once stood is a spot which used to be called Sinichya Hill with a cemetery containing the very old Church of SS Peter and Paul built in 1185-92 by the inhabitants of nearby Lukinaya Street. The upper part of the church was rebuilt on many occasions, but there are grounds for believing that, like the Smolensk church on.

The Church of Peter and Paul on Sinichya Hill (1185-1192):

Vik Sheri

[cameronpaul]

These photographs of Russia are wonderful and remind us of just how many historic buildings still exist in this amazing country. Have long wanted to visit and will definitely make the effort in the not too distant future. Keep the photos coming!!

[AlekseyVT]

World Heritage does not include, for reasons unknown, several closely related monuments of Novgorod:

THE CHURCH OF THE TRANSFIGURATION OF OUR SAVIOR ON KOVALYOVO FIELD:

The church of the Transfiguration of Our Savior on Kovalyovo Field was built in 1345 by the order of Novgorod boyar Ontsifor Zhabina and for a long time it was the cathedral (main) temple of the Cloister of the Transfiguration of Our Savior in Kovalevo. The church was painted in 1380. The fresco on a drum is the most impressive as well as the enormous figures of warriors in the lower registers of walls, a personification of epochs, which began with the victory of the Russians troops in the Battle of Kulikovo (1380). From 1941-1944 the church was ruined by Nazis. It was craftsmanship and the titanic work of restorers that could revive it (architect - Leonid Krasnorechiev) and its painting (restorers - Alexander Grekov and Valentina Grekova). Today one can come and view its interior, the fragments of frescoes. There is an exhibition inside.

The church of the Transfiguration of Our Savior on Kovalyovo Field (1345):

nick7nnn2008

[AlekseyVT]

NIKOLO-VYAZHISHCHSKY MONASTERY:

The Nikolo-Vyazhishchskii Stavropegial Women's Monastery also known as the Vyazhishche or Vyazhishschky Monastery is a convent located in the village of Vyazhishche, 7 miles (12 km) NNW of Veliky Novgorod.

The monastery was founded in by the monks Efrosiny, Ignaty, and Galaktion and the hieromonk Pimen at the end of the fourteenth century (a charter from 1391 mentions it), with Pimen becoming the first hegumen of the monastery. It was first mentioned in the chronicle under the year 1411. The monastery was patronized by Archbishop Evfimy II (1429-1458), who was hegumen of the monastery before his election as archbishop of Novgorod in 1429, and was buried there (he is known as St. Evfimy of Vyazhishche). His sarcophagus is now in the Church of St. Evfimy of Vyazhishche, built in 1685. The monastery was one of the greatest landowners in the Novgorodian land, holding in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, some 2000 hectares of land. Much of its lands were confiscated during secularization under Catherine II (1762-1796) at which time it was classified a 2nd Class Monastery.

Following confiscation by the Soviets, the monastery was closed in 1920. It became part of a collective farm and the buildings were used to store yams, as well as a threshing floor, a forge, and a metalshop. From the 1950s, there were efforts to restore the monastery and it was returned to the Russian Orthodox Church in 1989. On March 31, 1990, then Metropolitan of Leningrad and Novgorod Alexius (later the Patriarch of Moscow) reconsecrated the main church to St. Evfimy.

The convent has the status of a stauropegic monastery (as of a grant from the Holy Synod of 7 October, 1995), that is, it is under the direct control of the Patriarch of Moscow rather than of the Archbishop of Novgorod. The current hegumenia is Antonia (Korneeva). There are at present some 15 nuns living at the monastery. Of four churches in the Monastery (St. Evfimy, St. Nicholas, St. John the Divine, and The Church of the Ascension), only one is now a working church, that of St. Evfimy. The rest are still being restored.

Cathedral of Saint Nicholas (1681-1683) and refectory with Church of St. John the Divine and Church of the Ascension (1694-1698):

Bacilla-G

[AlekseyVT]

Bacilla-G

[AlekseyVT]

THE LIST OF RUSSIAN WORLD HERITAGE SITES:

5. (UN #632, 1992). CULTURAL AND HISTORIC ENSEMBLE OF THE SOLOVETSKY ISLANDS (from 15th century):

Brief UNESCO's Description: "The Solovetsky archipelago comprises six islands in the western part of the White Sea, covering 300 square km. They have been inhabited since the 5th century B.C. and important traces of a human presence from as far back as the 5th millennium B.C. can be found there. The archipelago has been the site of fervent monastic activity since the 15th century, and there are several churches dating from the 16th to the 19th century".

The Solovetsky Islands are located in the Onega Bay of the White Sea, Russia. The islands are administrated from Arkhangelsk as Solovetsky District and are served by the Solovki Airport. Area: 347 square km. Population: 900 (2007).

This archipelago consists of six islands known collectively as the Solovki: Bolshoy (Big) Solovetsky Island (246 square km.); Anzersky Island - Anzer (47 square km.); Bolshaya (Big) Muksalma (17 square km.); Malaya (Small) Muksalma (0.57 square km.); Bolshoy (Big) Zayatsky (1.25 square km.); Maly (Small) Zayatsky (1.02 square km.).

The shores of the islands are very indented. They are formed of granites and gneiss. The relief of the islands is hilly (the highest point is 107 m). Most of the Solovetsky Islands are covered with Scots Pine and Norway Spruce forests, which are partially swampy. There are numerous lakes, which were joined by monks so as to form a network of canals.

One interesting feature of these islands is stone labyrinths and other stone settings, especially the Stone labyrinths of Bolshoi Zayatsky Island. Such labyrinths were typical for Northern Europe, but most have perished and now Solovetsky Islands have some of the best remaining examples.

Historically the islands have been the setting of the famous Russian Orthodox Solovetsky Monastery complex. It was founded in the second quarter of the 15th century by two monks from the Kirillo-Belozersky Monastery. By the end of the 16th century, the abbey had emerged as one of the wealthiest landowners and most influential religious centres in Russia.

The existing stronghold and its major churches were erected in stone during the early reign of Ivan the Terrible at the behest of St. Philip of Moscow. At the onset of the Schism of the Russian Church, the monks staunchly stuck to the faith of their fathers and expelled the tsar's representatives from the Solovki, precipitating the eight-year-long siege of the islands by the forces of Tsar Alexis. Tsarist Army captured monastery after eight years of siege only due to betrayal of one of the monks. All other monks were executed.

Throughout the imperial period of Russian history, the monastery was renowned as a strong fortress which repelled foreign attacks during the Livonian War (16th century), Time of Troubles (17th century), the Crimean War (19th century), and the Russian Civil War (20th century).

After the October Revolution, the islands attained notoriety as the site of the first Soviet prison camp (GULAG). The camp was inaugurated in 1923, while Lenin was still at the helm of Soviet Russia. It was closed in 1939, on the eve of the World War II. By the beginning of the war, there was a naval cadet training camp for the Soviet Northern Fleet.

In 1974, the Solovetsky Islands were designated a historical and architectural museum and a natural reserve of the USSR. In 1992, they were inscribed on the World Heritage List "as an outstanding example of a monastic settlement in the inhospitable environment of northern Europe which admirably illustrates the faith, tenacity, and enterprise of later medieval religious communities". Today, the Solovki are seen as a major tourist magnet in the orbit of the Russian North. One can get to the islands either by ship from Kem or by plane from Arkhangelsk.

Solovetsky Islands:

Александр Федотов

[AlekseyVT]

5.1. SOLOVETSKY MONASTERY:

Solovetsky Monastery was the greatest citadel of Christianity in the Russian North before being turned into a special Soviet prison and labor camp (1923–1939), which served as a prototype for the GULAG system. Situated on the Solovetsky Islands in the White Sea, the monastery braved many changes of fortune and military sieges. Its most important structures date from the 16th century, when Philip Kolychev was its hegumen.

Solovetsky Monastery was founded in the late 1429 by monks Gherman (Herman) and Savvatiy (Sabbatius) of Kirillo-Belozersky Monastery. In the 15th and 16th centuries, when Novgorodian Marfa Boretskaya donated her lands at Kem and Summa to the monastery in 1450, the monastery quickly enlarged its estate, which was situated on the shores of the White Sea and the rivers falling into it. Solovetsky Monastery extended its producing and commercial activity, becoming an economic and political center of the White Sea region. Archimandrites of the monastery were appointed by the tsar himself and the patriarch. Peter the Great visited the Solovki in 1694.

Solovetsky Monastery's "business" activity included saltworks (in the 1660s, it owned 54 of them), seafood production, trapping, fishery, mica works, ironworks, pearl works etc., which had engaged many people dependent on the monastery.

By the 17th century, Solovetsky Monastery had already had some 350 monks, 600-700 servants, artisans and peasants. In the 1650s and 1660s, the monastery was one of the strongholds of the Raskol. The Solovetsky Monastery Uprising of 1668–1676 was aimed at Nikon's ecclesiastic reform and took on an anti-feudal nature. Tsarist Army captured monastery after eight years of siege only due to betrayal of one of the monks. All other monks were executed. In 1765, Solovetsky Monastery became stauropegic (from the Greek stauros meaning "cross" and pegio meaning "to affirm"), i.e. it subordinated directly to the Synod.

Together with the Sumskoy and Kemsky stockades, Solovetsky Monastery represented an important frontier fortress with dozens of cannons and a strong garrison. In the 16th to 17th centuries, the monastery succeeded a number of times in repelling the attacks of the Livonian Brothers of the Sword and the Swedes (in 1571, 1582 and 1611). During the Crimean War, Solovetsky Monastery was attacked by three British ships. After 9 hours of shelling on the 6 and 7 July, the vessels left with nothing. Between the 16th and the early 20th centuries, the monastery was also a place of exile for the opponents of autocracy and official Orthodoxy and a center of Christianization in the north of Russia. The monastery also had a huge depository of manuscripts and old books.

The pride of the monks was the monastery's garden which had many exotic flora, such as the Tibetan wild roses presented to the monks by Agvan Dorzhiev, a famous Buryatian lama who was a member of Tibetan Karshog (Government) during the days of the Great 13th Dalai Lama.

After the Bolshevik Revolution, the Soviet authorities closed down the monastery and incorporated many of the buildings into Solovki, one of the earliest forced-labor camps of the GULAG during the 1920s and 1930s. The camp was mainly used for cutting trees, and when the trees were gone, the camp was closed. Before the Second World War, a sea cadet school was opened on the island.

The architectural ensemble of the Solovetsky Monastery is located on the shores of the Prosperity Bay on Solovetsky Island. The territory of the Solovetsky Monastery is surrounded by massive walls (height 8 to 11 m, thickness 4 to 6 m) with 7 gates and 8 towers (built in 1584–1594 by an architect named Trifon), made mainly of huge boulders up to 5 m in length. There are also religious buildings on the monastery's grounds (the principal ones are interconnected with roofed and arched passages), surrounded by multiple household buildings and living quarters, including a refectory (a 500 sq. m. chamber) with the Dormition Cathedral (built in 1552-1557), Transfiguration Cathedral (1558–1566), Church of Annunciation (1596–1601), stone chambers (1615), watermill (early 17th century), bell tower (1777), and Church of Nicholas (1834).

Today, the Solovetsky Monastery is a historical and architectural museum. It was one of the first Russian sites to have been inscribed in the UNESCO World Heritage List. A small brotherhood of monks appeared in the monastery again and now it has about ten monks. During last several years the monastery was strongly repaired, but it is still under reconstruction.

Solovetsky Monastery (founded in 1429):

nina-n

[AlekseyVT]

sowaskan

[AlekseyVT]

sowaskan

[AlekseyVT]

5.1. REFECTORY AND DORMITION CATHEDRAL:

The central complex of the Solovetsky Monastery ensemble began to form in the middle of the 15th century. The first churches and brethren's cells were made of wood. Fires have destroyed the buildings, and nobody know how they looked like.

In 1552 solid buildings made of bricks appeared, the bricks production was arranged at the Monastery brick factory. In five years' time the Novgorod masters and architects built the Uspenskaya (Dormition) Church, Trapesnaya (Refectory) and Kelarskaya (Bursar's) Chambers which made an architectural complex. The most impressive of these is the Refectory, it is the only chamber in the Russian monasteries built with a single supportive column in the middle. The area of the Refectory is 483 sq. m. Its vaults are resting on the walls of more than 2 m. thick, the central column is 4 m. in diameter and is made of white stone.

Refectory and Dormition Cathedral (1552-1557):

malvina542803

[AlekseyVT]

5.2. CATHEDRAL OF THE TRANSFIGURATION OF OUR SAVIOR:

The Cathedral of the Transfiguration of Our Savior was build between 1558 and 1566 under the guidance of Philip Kolychev, a Moscovite monk of noble origins who left his privileged existence in 1537 and joined the Solovetsky monastic community. It's 47 m. high. Two upper tiers house the main altar and six chapels, in the lower part of the building there are burial-vaults of locally worshipped saints.

Under the direction of Philip the monastery flourished during the 16th century. Philip guided an ambitious program of construction that transformed the monastery and created several monumental buildings of brick and stone. In the summer of 1566 he was called back to Moscow by Ivan the Terrible who supported Philip’s appointment as metropolitan. But Philip's resistance to Ivan's misrule led to his exile and execution in 1569.

Cathedral of the Transfiguration of Our Savior (1558-1566):

VovanJorf

[AlekseyVT]

5.3. GATE CHURCH OF THE ANNUNCIATION (1596—1601):

VovanJorf

[AlekseyVT]

5.4. STONE CHAMBERS:

The 17th century is the time when many of the Monastery's living quarters and household buildings were constructed. The exterior and interior of the brethren's cells can be seen in one of the restored cells which are situated along the northern facade of the Svyatitelsky (Hierarch's) Chamber.

The original appearance of the Portnaya (Dressmaker's) and Chobotnmaya (Bootmaker's) Chambers (1642) has been restored in the northern yard. The most interesting of all the household constructions is the stone mill in the southern courtyard, it was built on one of the underground canals running from the Svyatoye (Holy) Lake to the Blagopoluchiye (Prosperity) Bay.

Dressmaker's Chamber (1642):

Александр Федотов

[AlekseyVT]

5.5. WATER MILL (early 17th century):

ankirin

[AlekseyVT]

5.6. BELL TOWER (1777):

VovanJorf

[AlekseyVT]

5.7. BELL TOWER AND CHURCH OF ST. NICHOLAS:

Among the 18th century monuments the three-tiered bell-tower, the highest in the Kremlin (52 m), is the most remarkable. In the 19th century to replace the ruins of the Nikolskaya (Saint Nicholas's) Church a five-domed Nikolsky (Saint Nicholas's) Cathedral was built.

Bell Tower (1777) and Church of Saint Nicholas (1577; razed and rebuilt in 1830-1834):

VovanJorf

[AlekseyVT]

THE LIST OF RUSSIAN WORLD HERITAGE SITES:

6. (UN #633; 1992) WHITE MONUMENTS OF VLADIMIR AND SUZDAL (12th-16th century):

Brief UNESCO's Description: "These two artistic centres in central Russia hold an important place in the country's architectural history. There are a number of magnificent 12th- and 13th-century public and religious buildings, above all the masterpieces of the Collegiate Church of St. Demetrios and the Cathedral of the Assumption of the Virgin".

Vladimir is a city in Russia, located on the Klyazma River, 200 kilometers (124 mi) to the east of Moscow along the M7 motorway. It is the administrative center of Vladimir Oblast. Population: 337.670 (2010). Vladimir was one of the medieval capitals of Russia, and two of its cathedrals are a World Heritage Site. It is served by Vladimir Semyazino Airport, and during the Cold War Vladimir was host to Dobrynskoye air base.

The area occupied by the city of Vladimir has been inhabited by humans (at least intermittently) for approximately 25.000 years. Traditionally, the founding date of Vladimir has been acknowledged as 1108, as the first mention of Vladimir in the Primary Chronicle appears under that year. This view attributes the founding of the city, and its name, to Vladimir Monomakh, who inherited the region as part of the Rostov-Suzdal principality in 1093. In 1958, the 850th anniversary of the city foundation was celebrated, with many monuments from the celebrations adorning the city squares.

In the 1990s, a new opinion developed that the city is older than this. Scholars reinterpreted certain passages in the Hypatian Codex, which mentions that the region was visited by Vladimir the Great, the "father" of Russian Orthodoxy, in 990, so as to move the city foundation date to that year. The defenders of the previously uncontested founding year of 1108 dispute the claims of those who support the new date, arguing that the new theory was fabricated in order to provide a reason to have a celebration in 1995.

The neighboring town of Suzdal, for instance, was mentioned in 1024, and yet its 12th century inhabitants alluded to Vladimir as a young town and treated its rulers with arrogance. In the words of a major chronicle, they said that the people of Vladimir were "their kholops and scions". In the seniority conflicts of the 12th and early 13th centuries, Vladimir was repeatedly described as a "young town" compared to Suzdal and Rostov. The Charter of Vladimir, the basic law of the city passed in 2005, explicitly mentions 990 as the date of the city's foundation.

Regardless of which founding date is most accurate, the city's most historically significant events occurred after the turn of the 12th century. Serving its original purpose as a defensive outpost for the Rostov-Suzdal principality, Vladimir had little political or military influence throughout the reign of Vladimir Monomakh (1113–1125), or his son Yury Dolgoruky ("long arms") (1154–1157).

It was only under Dolgoruky's son, Andrey Bogolyubsky (1157-1175), that it became the center of the Vladimir-Suzdal principality. Thus began the city's Golden Age, which lasted until the Mongol invasion of Russia in 1237. During this time Vladimir enjoyed immense growth and prosperity, and Andrei oversaw the building of the Golden Gates and the Cathedral of the Assumption. In 1164, Andrey even attempted to establish a new metropolitanate in Vladimir, separate from that of Kiev, but was rebuffed by the Patriarch of Constantinople.

Scores of Russian, German, and Georgian masons worked on Vladimir's white stone cathedrals, towers, and palaces. Unlike any other northern buildings, their exterior was elaborately carved with the high relief stone sculptures. Only three of these edifices stand today: the Assumption Cathedral, the Cathedral of St. Demetrios, and the Golden Gate. During Andrey's reign, a royal palace in Bogolyubovo was built, as well as the world-famous Intercession Church on the Nerl, now considered one of the jewels of ancient Russian architecture. Andrey was assassinated at his palace at Bogolyubovo in 1175.

Vladimir was besieged by the Mongol-Tatar hordes under Batu Khan - and finally overrun on February 8, 1238. A great fire destroyed 32 limestone buildings on the first day alone, while the grand prince and all his family perished in a church where they sought refuge from the fire. The bishop of Vladimir managed to escape.

After the Mongols, Vladimir never fully recovered, and even though the most important Rus prince (usually the Prince of Moscow, but sometimes of Tver or another principality) was styled the Grand Prince of Vladimir and was the tax-collector of the Golden Horde. From 1299 to 1325, the city was seat of the metropolitans of Kiev and All Rus, until Metropolitan Peter moved the see to Moscow. The Grand Prince of Vladimir were originally crowned in Vladimir's Assumption Cathedral, but when Moscow superseded Vladimir as the seat of the Grand Prince, the Assumption Cathedral in the Moscow Kremlin, loosely copied by the Italian architect Aristotele Fioravanti from Vladimir's original, became the site where the grand princes were crowned. Even after the rise of Moscow though, Muscovite grand princes built several new churches in Vladimir, notably the Annunciation church at Snovitsy (ca. 1501), three kilometers north-west of the city, and a charming church in the Knyaginin nunnery (ca. 1505), with murals dating to 1648.

Remains of the prince-saint Alexander Nevsky were kept in the ancient Nativity abbey of Vladimir until 1703, when Peter the Great had them transferred to the Monastery (now Lavra) of Aleksandr Nevsky in St. Petersburg. The Nativity church itself (1191–1196) collapsed several years later, when they tried to make more windows in its walls, in an effort to brighten the interior.

Cathedral Square, monument to 850-anniversary of Vladimir (1958-1960, sculptors - Daniil Ryabichev, Vladimir Doletsky, architect - Alexey Dushkin):

Морошка

[AlekseyVT]

6.1. DORMITION CATHEDRAL IN VLADIMIR:

Dormition Cathedral in Vladimir (sometimes translated Assumption Cathedral) used to be a mother church of medieval Russia in the 13th and 14th centuries. It is part of the World Heritage Site entitled White Monuments of Vladimir and Suzdal.

The cathedral was commissioned by Andrew the Pious (Andrey Bogolyubsky) in his capital Vladimir and dedicated to the Dormition of the Theotokos (Virgin Mary), whom he promoted as the patron saint of his lands. According to ancient Russian chronicles, the masons were invited from Friedrich Barbarossa. Originally erected in 1158-1160, the 6-pillared 5-domed cathedral was expanded in 1186-1189 to reflect the augmented prestige of Vladimir. Embracing the area of 1178 sq. meters, it remained the largest of Russian churches for the following 300 or 400 years.

Andrew the Pious, Vsevolod the Big Nest, and other rulers of Vladimir-Suzdal were interred in the crypt of this church. Unlike many other churches, the cathedral survived the great devastation and fire of Vladimir in 1238, when the Mongol hordes of Batu Khan took hold of the capital.

The exterior walls of the church are covered with elaborate carvings. The interior was painted in the 12th century and then repainted by the great Andrey Rublev and Daniil Chernyi in 1408. The Dormition Cathedral served as a model for Aristotele Fioravanti when he designed the eponymous cathedral in the Moscow Kremlin in 1475-1479. A lofty belltower, combining genuinely Russian, Gothic, and Neoclassical influences, was erected nearby in 1810. Later, in 1862, the chapel of St. George was built between the bell tower and the cathedral.

Assumption Cathedral was closed for church services by the Communists beginning in 1927. It was allowed to resume religious services in 1944—as part of Stalin's effort to enlist the Orthodox Church's support for the war effort against the Nazis. This magnificent cathedral has recently undergone major renovations.

Dormition Cathedral (1158-1160; expanded in 1186-1189):

Амиго

[AlekseyVT]

Dormition Cathedral and bell tower (1810):

Ancora

[AlekseyVT]

6.2. CATHEDRAL OF SAINT DEMETRIUS IN VLADIMIR:

The Cathedral of St. Demetrius, built by Prince Vsevolod the Big Nest, is one of the most graceful and beautiful churches in Vladimir. It is like an icon in stone. Beauty and mystery are inseparably united in it, making the Cathedral of St. Demetrius unique among Vladimir's churches.

The first mystery of this cathedral involves its "birth". None of the chronicles mention exactly when this royal church was built. However, there are many reports that in 1197 the icon of St. Demetrius of Salonica was brought here from Byzantium, so it is assumed that it was around this date that the cathedral was constructed.

The next mystery involves the cathedral itself. Numerous relief images of lions, centaurs, snow leopards and exotic ornaments (over 600!) are carved on the white-stone walls. The sculptural decor also incorporates subjects from the Bible and Classical mythology. In the central parts of the facades the image of King David is repeated. In medieval times he was associated with the celebration of beauty and harmony in the world. Though all these carved images may seem to be only mere decorations, a valuable garment, they undoubtedly had another function; the function of communicating to people, of inspiring them. Therefore, the question is why so many non-Christian carvings were included. There is no definitive answer to this question. Each of us are free to contemplate the possibilities.

After being closed for 30 years for restoration, Cathedral of St. Demetrius was opened to the public in June 2005. Maybe the answers to its mysteries lie within.

Cathedral of Saint Demetrius (1194-1197):

latanina-l