Suzdal - the historic city of Golden Ring of Russia
As for
its general composition, the tripartite division with the main entrance in the
middle and the tower on the corner was a familiar feature in Russian
architecture. The first floor contains a large hall with two rows of windows
and vaults which are supported by a square central pillar and the walls. This
system of roofing large areas, which is found as early as the fifteenth century
in the Faceted Halls in Moscow and Novgorod, was used in Russia right up to the
end of the seventeenth century.
The
convent is surrounded by walls which are seventeenth-century in form. A section
«has been
restored in the southwest corner, however, which is constructed like
sixteenth-century fortified walls. It has a firing platform resting on blind
arches on the inside of the walls and higher up, above the platform, is a
parapet with loopholes.
On the
opposite bank of the Kamenka, the Monastery of the Saviour was founded
(fourteenth century), almost at the same time as the Convent of the
Intercession. It later became called the Euthymus Monastery of the Saviour
after its first abbot. Both convent and monastery acted as fortresses defending
Suzdal from the north. None of the monastery's original buildings have
survived. It was well endowed and therefore constantly expanding and being rebuilt.
The
oldest stone building is the small church over the grave of Abbot Euthymus,
which belongs to the first decade of the sixteenth century. Later, at the very
end of that century, it became the south chapel of the huge, five-domed
Cathedral of the Transfiguration. Its outer walls were painted with frescoes
in the seventeenth century. The architecture of the large cathedral is
traditional in form, but has lost its full-bloodedness. The details are badly proportioned and rather
Insipid, such as the frieze of blind arcading and the recessed portals. The
interior is spacious and cold. The adoption of Vladimir-Suzdalian features in
the official forms of Moscow architecture became very pronounced during the
growing centralization ot the state of Muscovy.
The
refectory Church of the Dormition belongs to the monastery's early building
period (1525). It was built according to the type of tent-roofed churches which
were characteristic of sixteenth-century architecture. The central (and now the
sole) tent-shaped spire is In a line with the central apse and rests on a short
octagon which is supported by the corbelled arches of the main octagon. The two
smaller spires (no longer extant) stood over the side apses, producing a
pyramidal composition. The three tent-shaped spires of the Church of the
Dormition can be regarded as an echo of the three domes, so popular in Suzdal,
but reinterpreted through the Images of wooden and fortification architecture.
One may assume that it was the predecessor of the splendid Divnaya Church in
Uglich built a century later.
The
tent-shaped spires of the Gate-church and the bell-tower echoed, as it were,
that of the refectory church. As In the
Convent of the Intercession, the nine-sided bell-tower belonged to the
pillar-type of church “under the bell”, and probably also dated back to the
first decade of the sixteenth century. The decoration was simple: on the lower
tier, or socle, there were inset decorative corbels, and in the second tier,
containing the tiny church built in thanksgiving for the birth of Ivan IV, the
slit-like embrasures of the windows alternated with broad surrounds in the form
of portals. A third storey consisting of the bell tier with flat arches was
topped by two tent-shaped spires.
During
the sixteenth — seventeenth
centuries a bell-tower (of the Pskov-Ian type) in the form of an arcade with
three arches was added to the main pillar. Although they belong to different
periods, the sections form a single whole: they are moulded together by the
wall decoration of niches, balusters and Intertwined decorative corbels. In
between the pillar and the arcade is a clock tower with the traditional
tent-shaped spire.
It is
probable that the tent-roofed bell-towers of the neighbouring convent and
monastery foreshadowed the appearance in 1530 of one of the greatest
achievements of Russian architecture, the Church of the Ascension in the
village of Kolomenskoye.
The Gate-church,
balanced on the east and west by apses and a parvis, also had two tent-shaped
spires formerly. Thus, the tent-shaped spires on the pyramidal structures
united all the monastery and convent buildings and the wall towers into a
single ensemble.
The
monastery's buildings are protected by magnificent walls dating back to the
second half of the seventeenth century with twelve towers, either polygonal,
rectangular or circular. They have the decoration typical of that time. The
gate-tower stands out In particular. Its rectangular body and tent roof reach a
height of twenty-two meters placed almost in the centre of the facade. It is
flanked by polygonal corner towers which emphasize its importance.
The
Convent of the Deposition of the Robe was founded just outside the posad, the
town's artisan quarter, in the thirteenth century. Along its walls ran a moat
called the Netloka (that which does not flow) protecting the town on the north.
The convent's first stone building was begun in the sixteenth century. The
cathedral which belongs to this period is quite small and stands out because of
Its simple interior and the three domes characteristic of sixteenth-century
Suzdal. Inside is a pillar-less domed vault — this is one of the earliest specimens of pillar-less
churches.
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