Sometimes, very rarely, my husband and I manage to go for a walk together (that is, without our dear kids). And on such walks, my observation of the world around me, of course, increases. And so our choice fell on the Church of the Holy Trinity in Nikitniki (Nikitnikov lane, no. 3). Well, while we were going there, by some miracle, we were carried onto the street. Varvarka. It’s a pity that it was late and we couldn’t get inside all the churches. Except one...
As soon as we left the subway China town A heavy downpour began and we hastened to take refuge in the Church of All Saints on Kulishki. What a miracle it is: it’s pouring rain outside, and you’re on the porch of the church (this in itself is symbolic). And you look and understand that you are at a crossroads: to the right there is a warm light from candles, a flickering, trembling twilight and from the iconostasis gracious faces appear at you, the smell of wax and incense, and as a contrast, you look to the left: a wall of cold, fresh rain, its drumming on the metal roof (as if on purpose, to enhance the sensations).
We entered the depths of the church. There the sacrament of confession took place and the relics of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker were displayed. I remember my strong embarrassment and timidity... after all, I didn’t come here to pray, but to watch and perceive. And so I felt embarrassed... I bought candles and lit them, read a prayer. It became easier... Then I sat down on a bench opposite the iconostasis and began to look... My husband said: “Until you accept the rain, the rain will not end...”, and I thought: “This sky is crying...” (I don’t know why ...). I will write about the Church of All Saints in Kulishki in next post. And now we will talk about another temple.
Church of the Holy Trinity in Nikitniki
(Church of Icons Mother of God Georgian on Varvarka). (Nikitnikov lane, no. 3).
Since 1654, the main shrine of the temple has been a copy (copy) of the Georgian icon of the Mother of God, made in honor of the capital’s deliverance from the pestilence (plague epidemic). For this reason, the temple was commonly called the Church of the Georgian Mother of God. For the 250th anniversary of this event, a special chapel was dedicated to the Georgian Mother of God in the basement. This is where the old name of Nikitnikov Lane came from - "Gruzinsky", which was changed to the current one in 1926. About the icon According to legend, the icon is of Georgian origin and during the conquest of the country by Shah Abbas in 1622, it was taken to Persia. One Persian merchant offered it to the clerk of the merchant Yegor Lytkin, Stefan Lazarev, who was then in Persia on trade business. Stephen happily bought the miraculous image of the Virgin Mary in 1625 and kept it for some time. At this time, the Yaroslavl merchant Yegor Lytkin saw this icon in a night dream and it was revealed to him that it was with his clerk Lazarev, and at the same time received an order to send the Georgian icon to the Krasnogorsk monastery founded in 1603 on Pinega in the Arkhangelsk diocese. Lytkin forgot about this revelation for some time. But when Stefan returned to his homeland in 1629 and showed him the icon, the merchant immediately remembered the vision. He immediately went with the Georgian icon to the Dvina chapels of the Montenegrin monastery, where he fulfilled the omen he had seen earlier. The Montenegrin monastery was named because it was built on a mountainous, gloomy-looking area surrounded by dense forests, known as the Black Mountain. This monastery received the name “Krasnogorsk Monastery” only later. After the appearance of the icon in the Krasnogorsk monastery, numerous miracles began to be attributed to it. In 1654, the Georgian icon was brought to Moscow for renovation and the making of a new frame. That year there was a plague epidemic in the city and a number of healings are associated with the brought image. So, in gratitude for the healing of his son, silversmith Gabriel Evdokimov ordered a copy of a Georgian icon for the Church of the Holy Trinity in Nikitniki, which is attributed to the brush of Simon Ushakov. Due to reports of miracles, in 1658, by decree of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich and Patriarch Nikon, the icon was celebrated on August 22, the day of its appearance in the monastery. In 1698, a decree ordered that the Georgian icon be brought annually to Arkhangelsk “for the sake of the consecration of the city and the Christ-loving peoples who demand the mercy of God and Her Mother of God.” In addition to Arkhangelsk, the image was worn to Vologda, Veliky Ustyug, Pereslavl-Zalessky, Moscow and Siberia. In 1707, the isographer of the Armory Chamber, Kirill Ulanov, made an accurate measured list of the Georgian icon ( color photo). On its lower field there is an inscription: this holy image of the Mother of God was written with the same measure and mark as in the Montenegrin monastery, called Georgian.” The icon contains 4 reliquaries. Other copies were made from the icon, some of which were considered miraculous. In 1920-1922, after the closure of the Krasnogorsk monastery, the icon disappeared, and then in 1946, after the opening of the monastery, it reappeared in it. Arkhangelsk Bishop Leonty (Smirnov) reported to the Moscow Patriarchate in 1946 that the Georgian icon took part in the religious procession in Arkhangelsk. After this, the fate of the icon remains unknown. The icon belongs to the Hodegetria type and is close to the Periveleptian version. The iconography of the Georgian icon has analogues among other Georgian icon-painting monuments of the 10th-16th centuries and was especially widespread in Kakheti. The Virgin Mary is depicted slightly turned and inclined towards the Infant Christ sitting on her left hand. Jesus' head is slightly tilted back, a scroll is in his left hand, and his right hand is folded in a blessing gesture. The peculiarity of the image of Jesus Christ is right leg, turned with the bare sole outward.
Georgian icon of the Mother of God
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Exact measuring list of the icon, 1707, Ulanov
Church history
Holy Church Life-Giving Trinity in Nikitniki - an elegant example of Moscow pattern design (an architectural style that emerged in the 17th century on the territory of Muscovite Rus', characterized by intricate forms, an abundance of decor, complexity of composition and picturesque silhouette) mid-17th century century, built by Yaroslavl merchants in Kitai-Gorod. The architecture of the temple is a significant milestone in the history of Russian architecture; the temple served as a standard for many Moscow churches of the second half XVII century.
Back in the 16th century, a wooden church in the name of the holy martyr Nikita stood on this site. In the 1620s, it burned down and, by order of the Yaroslavl merchant Grigory Nikitnikov, who lived nearby, a new stone church was built in the name of the Holy Trinity in 1631-1653. Sources mention construction work in 1631-34 and 1653. Historians do not have a common opinion regarding which of these dates the construction of the church should be dated.
Although the customer was a merchant from Yaroslavl, the architectural design of the church has nothing in common with the huge four-pillar churches of the Yaroslavl school. On a high basement there is a pillarless quadrangle, covered with a closed vault. The church is crowned with five purely decorative domes (of which only the central one is illuminated), resting on two tiers of kokoshniks.
On the northern and southern sides it is adjacent to chapels with similar kokoshnik slides and one dome.
In the western part of the temple there is a porch with a gallery, which is adjoined on the northern side by a ceremoniously decorated, tall bell tower tent, and on the southern side by a porch facing the roadway of the alley, also decorated with a small tent.
Porch, 20011 photo Chebotar A. M.
Porch vault, photo 2011, Chebotar A. M.
Eastern porch weight, 2011, photo Chebotar A.M.
Western gallery, 2011, photo Chebotar A. M.
The southern aisle of the temple was dedicated to Nikita the Martyr, and the revered icon of this saint was transferred to it from the burnt church. It served as the tomb of the initiator of the construction and members of his family. At the beginning of the 20th century, the northern facade, where there was a porch symmetrical to the southern one, was distorted by extensions.
Southern aisle of Nikita the Martyr 2008 photo Chebotar A. M.
Each of the facades of this elegant Moscow temple differs from the other in appearance and details of decoration, which gives it a harmonious variety, so valued in the art of Russian architecture of the 17th century. Against the red background of the walls, the carved frames of asymmetrical windows, numerous pilasters, columns, carved belts and medallions, towels, icon cases, and inclusions of green tiles stand out in bright whiteness. And initially, the carvings of the temple (in particular, the platbands) were completely covered with painting in red paint and gold on a blue background.
Various platbands.
An analogy to this decorative solutions can be found in the Terem Palace; It is possible that this is the work of one team.
According to the conclusion of P. A. Rappoport, “the picturesque asymmetrical composition of the church, combined with its extreme richness decorative elements made the monument a kind of model for Moscow churches of the subsequent period." Late Moscow architecture will be characterized by intricately decorated platbands, arches with hanging weights, and widespread use of glazed tiles.
1971
1982
1982-1986
1984
View from the southwest and South part church, 1955
View from the east, 1995
The temple has almost completely preserved its original interior with paintings reproducing Dutch engravings of the Bible by P. Borcht of 1643.
The multi-figure, dynamic painting was carried out in 1652-53 by the best masters of the Armory Chamber - Joseph Vladimirov (the icon “The Descent of the Holy Spirit on the Apostles” is one of the few icons precisely associated with his name), Simon Ushakov and others. The icons of the local row of iconostasis of the main temple and the southern chapel also belong to their authorship.
In 1920 the temple was closed for worship and in 1934 transferred to the State Historical Museum. In 1923-41. The Simon Ushakov Museum operated here, since 1963 - Museum ancient Russian painting. In 1991, it was decided to return the church to believers; now services are held in the basement of the temple.
My feelings.
We couldn’t get inside, but we managed to walk around. And the first thing that catches your eye is that “the poor fellow is squeezed” from all sides and “captured by Soviet monsters.” 
If you abstract from your surroundings, you get a feeling of a joyful, cheerful, chaotic (disordered) flight up to the sky. It’s like the flight of a swift or swallow before the rain (the bird flies “raggedly”, catching up with insects). The look from the most stable lower tier, with its rhythm of rectangles and squares (although there is also a rhythm of triangles above the windows, hinting at us going up), slides higher, and then easier and easier, more playful and intricate. Different patterns lure you in, saying: “Look here and here...
On Sunday I went on an excursion with the Archnadzor around Kitay-Gorod, which fell behind the fence. In essence, it was a small circle around the city, ending at the porch of the Trinity in Nikitniki. Where the most persistent ones went on an excursion to the church.
The Church of the Life-Giving Trinity in Nikitniki was built by Yaroslavl craftsmen in the period from 1631 to 1634 on the site of the wooden church of Nikita the Great Martyr. The wooden church appeared somewhere in the 70s of the 16th century (in 1571 all the earlier buildings burned down due to the visit of Khan Devlet-Girey) and existed until the fire of 1626. From that first church of “Nicetas the Martyr on Glinishchi,” only the temple icon of Nikitas the Great Martyr (1579) has survived. The current building was built by a wealthy Moscow merchant, a native of Yaroslavl, Grigory Leontyevich Nikitnikov next to own home. The chapels of Nikolsky, Nikita the Martyr and John the Evangelist (under the bell tower) were immediately built in the church. Later, a chapel of the icon of the Georgian Mother of God appeared in the basement of the temple.
The architecture of the church is the 17th century in all its glory :). I think this style is called patterned. I would call it liberated patterning, because main feature, by which you recognize this style and this time is a thoughtful APPROXIMATE symmetry. There seems to be order, but no one strives for clear uniformity, and no one wants it. This is truly Russian conciliarity through pluralism... ;))
On the excursion we were told that the temple was built not according to a drawing, but according to a drawing by an icon painter (possibly Simon Ushakov). It is the work not of an architect, but of an artist. Here visual images freely germinate one into the other, without the need for mathematical precision. For example, the halos of saints standing in a dense crowd in paradise become zakomars or gather in groups and form inflorescences of window openings... But saints are people and are all different in their fate, which means the zakomars must be a little different in order to correspond to them.
Here is one window on the right, and the other on the left. There are always two windows, but one is larger, the other is smaller; one is thinner, the other is thicker; one is decorated with carvings like this, and the other like that. And this elongated curved window in the gallery above the porch is actually some kind of Art Nouveau. Most of all it reminds me of Shekhtel next door. I'm just tormented by doubts - is this really the 17th century?
Here is the carving on the window. At first glance, it seems that this is a symmetrical ornament. Nothing of the kind - these are freely wobbling curls, approximately following a certain pattern.
Here is a cinnabar drawing on the walls of the temple. It seems to be repeated, but it is approximately repeated.
Everything inside is covered with 17th century frescoes. You should come by sometime with binoculars and take a closer look. I filmed a little secretly.
The main church has a magnificent carved iconostasis from the 17th century. In the chapel of St. John the Theologian, a taiblo iconostasis (more ancient in design) has been preserved.
In short, before the presidential fence is completed, visit the Life-Giving Trinity in Nikitniki. Amazing place.
What is what in the churchTherefore, the origin of the name “Nikitniki” can be interpreted in two ways: either from the ancient church, or from the name of the owner of the estate. But be that as it may, the church burned down in another Moscow fire. The goods stored in the estate were also damaged. Then, in 1628-1634, Grigory Nikitnikov built a new stone church with his own funds. It reached us unchanged.
By the way, Nikitnikov’s desires were very prosaic: in the Church of the Life-Giving Trinity they set up hiding places for storing valuables, and in the basement there was a warehouse.
The temple in the Russian patterned style turned out to be elegant, so its features were copied during the construction of many other Moscow churches. For example, here for the first time the entrance to the church was decorated with a hipped porch. And the well-preserved frescoes in the Trinity Church in Nikitniki were made by Simon Ushakov.
In 1904, one chapel of the Church of the Life-Giving Trinity, in the basement, was consecrated in the name of the icon of the Georgian Mother of God, which is why the church is sometimes called the Church of the Georgian Mother of God.
Mini-guide to China TownThe image of the Georgian icon was considered miraculous: it was credited with the miracle of delivering Moscow from a pestilence in 1654. This was a list of the icon that the Persian Shah Abbas, who conquered Georgia in 1622, sold to Russian merchants. The original icon is located in the Krasnogorsk monastery on Pinega.
Zaryadye is one of the largest corners of Moscow, located in the southern part of Kitay-Gorod. This place got its name because it is located behind the shopping arcades.
We will begin our journey from the Kitay-Gorod metro station, and our route will mainly lie along Varvarka. Varvarka is one of the oldest streets in Moscow and the main street of Kitay-Gorod. In 1380, the holy noble prince Dimitry Donskoy entered the capital along it after his victory on the Kulikovo Field. Nowadays it is one of the most unique streets in the center of Moscow. From the side of the Moscow River it consists entirely of ancient buildings. Nowadays, on the day of celebration of the memory of the Slovenian teachers Cyril and Methodius, it is held here procession, heading from the Assumption Cathedral of the Kremlin to Slavyanskaya Square, to the monument to these saints. In former times, at the end of Varvarka there was the Varvarsky Gate, on which the Bogolyubskaya Icon of the Mother of God was installed.
Before walking along Varvarka, let's go to Nikitnikov Lane. On the corner of Varvarka there is the building of the former Church of John the Baptist. There is now an institution in it, and the church was built by Filaret Nikitich Romanov in memory of his dedication to patriarchy on June 24, 1619. In the 18th century. the church was renovated, and a chapel was made in it in honor of the holy martyrs Clement, Pope of Rome, and Archbishop Peter of Alexandria in memory of the accession to the throne of Empress Elizabeth Petrovna, which fell on the day of the celebration of these saints in 1742. There was also a chapel of the Bogolyubskaya Icon of the Mother of God - this the miraculous icon was placed on the Varvarsky Gate.
Let's turn into Nikitnikov Lane, and the Church of the Life-Giving Trinity in Nikitniki opens up to us. No matter how many times you’ve been here, you always look at this creation in amazement, your eye runs from bottom to top along the passages, platbands, cornices to kokoshniks. This beauty was created in honor of the Consubstantial and Indivisible Trinity. Approaching the temple, you admire it, and the words of the prayer arise by themselves: Most Holy Trinity, have mercy on us, and the “Trinity” of St. Andrei Rublev appears before your eyes, and you feel the smell of birch and dry grass, which is strewn on the floor of the temple on the holiday. Initially, there was the Church of the Great Martyr Nikita on this site. In 1626 there was a fire here, the church apparently burned down, but the icon of the Great Martyr Nikita was saved. In the 1630s. Yaroslavl merchant Grigory (Georgy) Nikitnikov, who settled nearby, built a stone church in the name of the Life-Giving Trinity with a chapel of Nikita the Great Martyr.
The chapels in this church are dedicated to St. Nicholas, the Apostle John the Theologian, and the Georgian Icon of the Mother of God. Georgian icon of the Mother of God in the 17th century. from Georgia through Persia she came to Russia and became famous for her miracles. In 1654, during the world plague, the icon was brought to Moscow, and a copy of the miraculous icon was placed in the Trinity Church in Nikitniki. It must be said that the royal icon painter Simon Ushakov contributed a lot to the decoration of the temple. He painted several icons for the iconostasis, one of them is famous - “Planting the Tree of the Russian State,” which deserves special consideration. There are wonderful paintings in the temple.
The middle and second half of the 17th century were marked by major achievements in the most various areas culture. In the visual arts, there is a struggle between two contradictory directions: progressive, associated with new phenomena in Russian artistic culture, which tried to go beyond the narrow church worldview, and obsolete, conservative, fighting against everything new and mainly against aspirations for secular forms in painting. Realistic quests in painting are driving force further development Russian fine art of the 17th century. The framework of church-feudal art with its narrow dogmatic themes is becoming too narrow, not satisfying either artists or customers. The rethinking of the human personality is taking shape under the influence of democratic strata, primarily wide circles of the townspeople, and is reflected in literature and painting. It is significant that writers and artists of the 17th century began to depict in their works real person- his contemporary, ideas about which were based on keen observations of life.
The process of “secularization” begins in architecture. Architects of the 17th century, when constructing churches, started from the usual forms of civil mansion and chamber architecture, from folk wooden buildings. This inspired skilled builders and talented stone carvers, who were closely connected with the people and with the craftsmanship environment.
New forms of architecture and painting were born in a bitter struggle with the theological foundations of the church-feudal worldview, in a struggle that testified to the crisis of the religious-symbolic tradition in art and the emergence of a new, vital direction in it.
In decorative and applied arts - in painting, in stone and wood carvings - artists borrow images of plant and animal motifs directly from life. They skillfully fit them into the plane of the wall, into the platband, portal or into decorations on the frames of iron doors. In this world of brightly colored flowers with flexible stems, the colorful plumage of birds, reality and fairy tales are intricately intertwined, and realistic tendencies are making their way more and more persistently. The shifts that took place in art XVII centuries, were supposed to contribute to the emergence of new fresco ensembles, and they are indeed created in township churches. On the walls of churches there appear cheerful, colorful paintings on the themes of gospel legends, the actions of which are transferred to the atmosphere of Russian life in the 17th century. One of these temples was the Trinity Church. Fascinating genre scenes flow into her painting in a wide stream, the scope of which was given by the plots of parables abundantly presented here.
Former asceticism disappears. Life itself poured into the church painting with all its concreteness: events, scenes, settings, costumes, household items, with human experiences and sorrows. The artists who worked in the Trinity Church faced a difficult task - to find a way to place a complex composition of biblical and gospel scenes on the walls and vaults of a small temple. Solving this problem with great artistic tact, the masters did not overload the compositions with multi-figure scenes and decorative variegation. The rhythmically calm structure of the pictorial tiers evenly encircling the walls, the clear chronological sequence in the placement of subjects, the large-scale correspondence of the depicted figures and the distance separating them from the viewer - all this taken together created a new visual multi-episode system of painting, harmoniously combined with the design of the interior space of the church. The innovations in the painting of the Trinity Church did not pass without a trace. The outstanding Moscow model caused numerous imitations. In the second half of the 17th century, similar cycles of fresco images decorated the churches of the Volga region cities, built in suburbs by order of wealthy merchants or at the expense of small traders and artisans. These monumental ensembles of the late 17th century, destroying the centuries-old church tradition, represent new aesthetic values. Appeal to the surrounding reality and inclusion in traditional church painting direct observations over nature and everyday life paved the way for Russian art of the 18th century. Trinity Church in Nikitniki stands on a high hill. The slender elongated proportions of its central part, crowned with five chapters, placed on a high basement, create a harmonious, integral architectural image.
In 1634, when the monument was completed, the Kitay-Gorod area was just beginning to be built up with boyar and merchant estates and courtyards; small ones predominated here wooden houses. The majestic temple dominated the entire area. At that time it was similar to modern high-rise buildings. Bright color brick walls Trinity Church, dissected by elegant decorative decoration of white carved stone and colored glazed tiles, covering of white German iron, golden crosses on green tiled domes10 - all together created an irresistible impression. The architectural masses of the building are compactly arranged, which is obviously due to the harmonious relationship between the external volume and the internal space. The unity of everyone contributes to this components temple, surrounded on both sides by a gallery.
The plan and composition of the church is based on a quadrangle, to which are adjacent chapels on both sides, an altar, a refectory, a bell tower, a gallery and a porch. The principle of combining all these parts of the temple goes back to the type of peasant wooden buildings, the basis of which was always a cage with a canopy, smaller cages and a porch attached to it. This composition is still largely connected with the architecture of the 16th and early 17th centuries and is a kind of completion of its development on Moscow soil. A similar compositional technique can be seen in a 16th-century monument - the Church of the Transfiguration in the village of Ostrovo on the Moscow River. Here, symmetrical aisles are built on the sides of the main pillar, united by a covered gallery.
Each aisle has its own entrance and exit to the gallery. At the end XVI century and in the 17th century this technique was further developed. It should be noted that in the tent roof of the Ostrovskaya Church there is already a gradual transition from the surface of the walls to the tent - in the form of several rows of kokoshniks. An example of a complete expression of a symmetrical composition with two side chapels is the Church of the Transfiguration in the village of Vyazema ( end XVI century,) in the Godunov estate near Moscow and the Church of the Intercession in Rubtsov (1619 - 1626). The latter is close in type to the townspeople's churches (the old cathedral Donskoy Monastery and the Church of St. Nicholas the Revealed on Arbat).. Its special features are: pillarless interior space and covering with kokoshniks. However, unlike the five-domed temple in the village of Vyazema, there is only one light dome. The above shows the organic connection of the church in Nikitniki with the settlement churches of the 16th and early 17th centuries. The architectural tradition of previous architecture was reflected in the composition of the Trinity Church: two chapels on the sides of the main quadrangle, a gallery on a high basement, three rows of kokoshniks “in a dash.” However, at the same time, the architect managed to find a completely different solution for the external volume and internal space: he placed the aisles on the sides of the main quadrangle asymmetrically. The northern large aisle receives a refectory. The miniature southern aisle has neither a refectory nor a gallery.
So, in contrast to the Church of the Transfiguration in the village of Vyazemy. where the gallery goes around the quadrangle on three sides, in the Trinity Church the gallery is preserved only on two sides - on the western and northern (the latter, dismantled in the 18th-19th centuries, has not yet been restored). There are three chapels in the Trinity Church: the northern one - Nikolsky, the southern one - Nikitsky and St. John the Evangelist under the hipped bell tower. Thus, for the first time in the architecture of the 17th century, the bell tower is part of a single ensemble with the church, with which it is connected by a staircase located at the northern end of the western gallery. A new constructive technique that determined the features of the building’s layout is the covering of the main quadrangle with a closed vault (with one light dome and four blind ones), in which inside the church there is a two-light, hall-type room free of pillars, designed for the convenience of viewing the paintings decorating the walls. This technique was transferred from civil architecture.
In solving the external volume of the building, the architects were able to find the correct proportional relationship between the main quadrangle, the bell tower, rushing upward, and the lower parts of the building, somewhat spreading horizontally, on a heavy white stone basement (altars, gallery, hipped porch). Distinctive feature The composition of the Trinity Church is that it changes its pictorial and artistic appearance when perceived from different points of view. From the north-west (from the side of the current Ipatievsky Lane) and from the south-east (from Nogin Square) the church is depicted as a single slender silhouette directed upward, making it look like a fairy-tale castle. It is perceived completely differently from the western side - from here the entire building literally spreads out, and all its component parts appear before the viewer: a quadrangle, a horizontally stretched western gallery, flanked by a bell tower that emphasizes the height of the church and a tented entrance porch. This bizarre variability of the silhouette is explained by the bold violation of symmetry in the composition, which was developed in the 16th century and in which the perception of the monument turned out to be the same from all sides.
In the church in Nikitniki big role plays with the elegant external decoration. To attract the attention of passers-by, the southern wall facing the street is richly decorated with paired columns and a complex entablature crowning the walls with a wide multi-broken cornice, given in a continuous change of protrusions and depressions, colored tiles and white stone carvings, rich in complex patterns, creating a bizarre play of chiaroscuro. This magnificent decorative decoration of the southern wall acquired the significance of a kind of signboard for Nikitnikov’s commercial and industrial “company”. On the courtyard side, the processing of the window frames and the apse of the chapel under the bell tower is still closely connected with Moscow architecture of the 16th century (Tryphon Church in Naprudnaya, etc.). A wonderful decorative effect is produced on the southern wall by two white stone carved platbands. The predominant ornamental motif in their volumetric-planar carving on a notched background is succulent stems with flowers and pomegranate buds. Birds are intricately incorporated into the floral ornament. (When clearing the window casings, remains of coloring were discovered: green-blue on the background, red on the ornament, and traces of gilding.) These two main large windows, located next to each other, are striking in their bold violation of symmetry. They are different in their artistic form and composition. One is rectangular, the other is five-blade, slotted. Vertical lines platbands and paired half-columns dividing the walls somewhat weaken the significance of the horizontal multi-broken cornices cutting the line of the walls. The vertical direction of the growing forms of the platbands is emphasized by the upper line of the trenches with skeletal kokoshniks and a white stone icon case placed between them, the high pointed end of which forms a direct transition to the covering along the kokoshniks.
Despite the general balance of the white stone decor, one is struck by the endless variety of forms of platbands with bolsters, kokoshniks and colored tiles, in which it is almost impossible to find two repeating motifs. The intricacy of the decorative decoration of the facade was enriched by a new kokoshnik-shaped two-bladed roof over the refectory, restored during the restoration of the southern wall in 1966 - 1967 by the architect G. P. Belov. The lavish decor gave the church the character of an elegant civil building. Its “secular” features were also enhanced by the uneven arrangement of windows and the difference in their sizes, associated with the purpose of the interior spaces.
The apses of the church are asymmetrical and corresponded to the division of the building into chapels. On the southern “facade” wall, with the help of rows of windows, wall ledges and multi-part cornices, a clear floor division is outlined, emphasized by paired semi-columns on double pedestals in the upper part and a completely different division of the wall by wide pilasters ground floor. This only emerging floor-to-floor division of the walls in the Trinity Church leads to the appearance of tiered church buildings in the second half of the 17th century. The rich decorative decoration of the southern wall with white stone carvings, decorations with colored glazed tiles placed on the corner in the form of rhombuses - everything taken together seems to prepare the viewer for the perception of an even more magnificent interior decoration churches. Big sizes The windows of the southern wall, providing an abundance of light, contribute to the visual expansion of the internal space. Special attention deserve carved white stone portals in the central interior, as if emphasizing new trends in the design of architectural space - the unification of individual parts of the building.
Here again, a free creative technique is allowed - all three portals are different in their forms. The northern one has a rectangular entrance opening, richly decorated with a continuous ornamental pattern, the basis of which is made up of weaving of stems and leaves with lush rosettes of flowers and pomegranate fruits (volumetric-planar carving on a notched background).
The portal ends with half a lush rosette of a giant pomegranate flower with juicy petals wrapped at the ends. The southern portal is cut in the form of a steep five-lobed arch with rectangular sides, as if supporting a strongly protruding multi-broken cornice. The same floral ornament on a notched background; at the corners the five-lobed casing is decorated with miniature images of parrots; traces of blue and red paint are preserved on their crest and plumage. It is possible that the torn MULTI-broken casing was previously crowned with a giant pomegranate fruit, similar to the pomegranate of the casing of the right window on the southern wall. If the northern and southern portals are elongated and directed upward, then the western portal is stretched in breadth. Low, semi-circular, it is entirely decorated with a carved white stone relief ornament of intertwining stems and multi-petal flowers of a wide variety of non-repeating patterns. High quality white stone carving, the closeness of its technique to the carving of the wooden iconostasis and to the carved ornament in the canopy of the 1657 Church of Elijah the Prophet in Yaroslavl give reason to assume that it is the creation of Moscow and Yaroslavl masters, who widely deployed their artistic talent here in the Trinity Church.
The hipped entrance porch with a creeping vault, two-lobed arches with an overhang and white stone carved weights is strongly pushed forward, towards the street, as if inviting everyone passing by to come in and admire.
Carved ornamented white stone weights are the leading motif of the decorative decoration of the church, forming an organic part of the entire architectural composition.
An intricate hanging weight is also embedded in the vault of the main room of the church. It represents four birds with outstretched wings, connected by their backs. At the lower end of the weight there is a thick iron ring, painted with cinnabar, which served to hang a small chandelier, which illuminated the upper tiers of the icons of the main iconostasis. On the inner edges of the hipped porch there are remains of a painting depicting the painting “The Last Judgment”. In the 17th century, the painting from the entrance porch ran continuously along the creeping vault of the staircase and filled the walls and vault of the western gallery. Unfortunately, no traces of ancient painting and plaster could be found here; all its remains were knocked down during renovation in mid-19th century.
At the top, in the lock of the vault of the entrance porch, there is a thin, elegant rosette carved from white stone, apparently intended for a hanging lantern that illuminated the scenes of the “Last Judgment” depicted here. From the western gallery a promising semi-circular portal with massive iron doors and bars leads into the church. Forged rectangular gratings, made up of intersecting strips, were built specifically to protect the paired white stone painted columns located on the sides of the entrance portal.
The flat surfaces of the stripes on the lattice are covered entirely with a simple incised ornament in the form of a twisting stem, with curls and leaves extending from it. At the places where the stripes intersect, there are eight-petalled figured plaques decorated with small incised patterns. Iron double doors with a semicircular top are decorated even more elegantly and fancifully. Their frame consists of solid iron vertical and horizontal strips, dividing the door panel into uniform squares. Judging by the remains of the painting, these squares were originally painted with flowers. At the crossing of the stripes there are decorations in the form of round through slotted iron plaques, once lined with scarlet cloth and mica. The door strips are embossed with images of lions, horses, unicorns and boars, various types of birds, sometimes on branches and wearing crowns. The rich composition of the feathered world is not always definable. Animals and birds are often combined into heraldic compositions included in floral patterns. The undoubted existence of the samples used by the masters is evidenced by one of the birds in the crown, entirely borrowed from the miniatures for the front Apocalypse (according to a manuscript of the early 17th century).
Icon painters who had sketches and drawings from icons and books, which they carefully preserved and passed on from generation to generation, could provide blacksmiths with similar drawings. Among the decorations on the doors, various designs of fairy tales stand out. bird of paradise Syria. Wide with open eyes the birds seem to vigilantly peer into the face of everyone entering the temple. On the horizontal stripes in the heraldic composition are images of fairy-tale mermaids with outstretched arms and steeply curled tails, peacocks, skates, unicorns, lions, etc. The figurative motifs of these animals and birds are inexhaustible. Here you can feel a living perception of reality, a fantastic world of fairy tales, and religious prejudices. However, it would be wrong to assume that the craftsmen who worked on the decoration front door, they might have forgotten about her church purpose. The images on the door are dominated by Sirin birds and peacocks, which the church considered to be a symbol of the Christian soul and paradise.
N.P. Sychev believes that in the composition of the painting of the northern niche in the Church of Boris and Gleb of 1152 in Kideksha, peacocks indicate the “paradise” environment in which the depicted saints reside. This allows us to say that the ideological concept behind decorating the door was to create a picture of paradise. But in a naive way creative imagination masters from the people, the idea of a Christian paradise was intertwined with fantastic images fairy world. Images of the “mermaid-bereginya”, winged griffins, horses and other birds and animals go back to pagan beliefs. According to pagan beliefs, mermaids were prayed for rain. Winged griffins and other animals protected life from evil spirits. Pagan symbols, included in the images on the carved doors of the Trinity Church, testify to the vitality in folk art XVII century of these non-canonical images, closely associated with folklore.
