Novodevichiy proezd 1
Tel. (495) 246 8526
Subway: Sportivnaya
Open: 10am- 5pm Wed- Mon
Service: 8am, 5pm Mon- Sat, 7am, 10am Sun
Cemetery: Open: 10am- 6pm daily
Novodevichy Convent is a medieval Russian Orthodox monastery that was found in 1524 by Moscow prince Vasili III to commemorate his conquest of formerly independent Smolensk principality. Thus another alternative name for the monastery is Bogoroditse (Mother of God)- Somelnsky (of Smolensk) Monastery. At the time of its construction it stood outside of Moscow city limits. Its walls part of the defences of the Russian capital. In fact parts of the original moat have been preserved and today serves as a picturesque pond.
Muscovite period
Vasily III, Grand Duke of
Moscow, founded the Novodevichy monastery in 1524 to commemorate his
conquest of Smolensk in 1514. The monastery began its history as a
fortress on a crooked bend of the Moskva river three versts
southwest of the Moscow Kremlin. It became an important part of the
southern defensive belt of Moscow, which already included many other
monasteries. After its Foundation, the Novodevichy monastery
received 3,000 rubles and the villages of Ahabinevo and Troparevo in
addition. Vasily's son, Tsar Ivan the terrible (reigned 1533-1584),
later granted a number of other villages to the monastery.
The Novodevichy monastery tonsured many women from the Royal
families and boyar clans of Russia, who were sometimes forced to
take vows. Fyodor I's wife Irina Godunov (lived here in 1598-1603)
she lived there with her brother Boris Godunov until he became the
new Tsar. Sofia Alekseyevna (sister of Peter the Great's sister,
lived here in 1689-1704), Evdokia Lopukhina (first wife of Peter the
Great, lived here in 1727-1731) and others. In 1610-1611, the Polish
division under the command of Alexander Gosiewska captured the
Novodevichy convent. When the Russian troops returned the monastery,
Tsar Mikhail Fyodorovich provided it with permanent soldiers (100
Streltsy in 1616, 350 soldiers in 1618). At the end of the 17th
century, the Novodevichy monastery had 36 villages (164,215 acres of
land) in 27 counties of Russia. In 1744, he owned 14,489 peasants.
Imperial period
In the middle of the 17th century, nuns from
other monasteries in the Ukrainian and Belarusian lands were
transferred to the Novodevichy monastery, the first of which was
Elena Dyevochkina. In 1721, some elderly nuns who had renounced the
old believers ' movement were given shelter. In 1724, the
Novodevichy monastery also housed a military hospital for soldiers
and officers of the Imperial Russian army and a shelter for
foundling women. By 1763, the monastery had 84 nuns, 35 novices, and
78 sick patients and servants. Each year, the state provided
Novodevichy monastery with 1,500 rubles, 1,300 quarters of bread,
680 rubles, and 480 quarters of bread for more than 250 abandoned
children.
In 1812, Napoleon's army tried to blow up the
Novodevichy monastery, but the nuns managed to save the monastery
from destruction. In Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace, Pierre was to be
executed under the walls of a monastery, but narrowly escaped his
fate. In another of his novels, Anna Karenina, Konstantin Levin
meets his future wife while she was skating near the walls of the
Novodevichy monastery. Indeed, Devichye field (meadow in front of
the monastery) was the most popular skating rink in Moscow of the
19th century. Tolstoy himself enjoyed skating here when he lived
nearby, in the Khamovniki district.
In 1871, the Filatiev
brothers donated money to the Novodevichy monastery orphanage for
orphans of "ignoble origin". In addition, the convent housed two
almshouses for nuns and novices. In the early 1900s, the Cathedral
was renovated and restored by the architect and curator Ivan
Mashkov. By 1917, the Novodevichy monastery had 51 nuns and 53 lay
people.
The Soviet period and beyond
In 1922, the
Bolsheviks closed the Novodevichy monastery (the last Cathedral was
closed in 1929) and turned it into a Museum of women's emancipation.
By 1926, the Novodevichy monastery was turned into a Museum of
history and art. In 1934, it became affiliated with the State
historical Museum. Most of its buildings were converted into
apartments, which saved the monastery from destruction.
In
1943, when Stalin introduced some relief for the Russian Orthodox
Church during world war II, he authorized the opening of Moscow
theological courses at the Novodevichy monastery. The following
year, the institution was transformed and became the Moscow
theological Institute. In 1945, the Soviets returned the assumption
Cathedral to the faithful. The residence of Metropolitan Krutitsky
and Kolomna has been located in the Novodevichy monastery since
1980.
In 1994, the nuns returned to the monastery, which is
currently run by the Metropolitan of Krutitsky and Kolomna. Some of
the churches and other monastic buildings are still associated with
the State historical Museum. In 1995, religious services resumed in
the monastery on the days of the patron Saint.
Declaration of a UNESCO world heritage site
In
2004, the Novodevichy monastery was declared a UNESCO world heritage
site. The UNESCO group's assessment confirmed that the monastery is
the most striking example of the so-called "Moscow Baroque". In
addition to the beautiful architecture and decorative details, the
monastery is characterized by urban planning value. The team also
noted that the Novodevichy monastery is an outstanding example of an
exceptionally well-preserved monastic complex. The Novodevichy
monastery complex combines the political and cultural character of
the existing world heritage site of the Moscow Kremlin. Russian
Russian Orthodox Christianity and the Russian history of the
XVI-XVII centuries are closely connected with the monastery itself.
Fire at the bell tower of the Novodevichy monastery
On
March 15, 2015, a fire engulfed the highest bell tower of the
Novodevichy monastery, which rises 72 meters. Novodevichy Monastery
was undergoing major repairs and was covered with forests. It took
firefighters almost three hours to put out the fire. It is reported
that the fire affected an area of three hundred square meters, but
the fire was limited to forests and did not cause damage to the
historical building itself. The suspected cause of the fire was a
short circuit caused by heat guns used to dry the facade. The press
service of the Moscow Department of cultural heritage blamed the
fire on a company that is carrying out restoration work. However,
Russian Deputy culture Minister Grigory Pirumov said that heat guns
are not used on the territory of the Novodevichy monastery, and the
bell tower was disconnected from the power grid.
The
building of Novodevichy monastery and monuments
Novodevichy
Monastery is located in the South-Western part of the historical
city of Moscow. The territory of the monastery is enclosed by walls
and surrounded by a Park, which forms a buffer zone. The Park is
bounded by the city to the North and East. It is bounded on the West
by the Moskva river, and on the South by the city highway. The
buildings are surrounded by a high masonry wall with 12 towers.
Entrances from the North (city) and South. The location of the
monastery territory is an irregular rectangle extending from West to
East.
At the end of the XVII century, during the reign of
Princess Sophia, a centric architectural ensemble was created around
the Smolensk Cathedral, in which the Cathedral turned out to be the
center of the intersection of two main axes. The North-South axis is
formed by two gate churches, and the West-East axis is formed by the
bell tower and refectory. According to the document of the second
half of the XVIII century, the author of this ensemble and the
Creator of most of the buildings of the monastery is the architect
Peter Potapov-the Creator of the Church of the assumption on
Pokrovka, close in stylistic features to the buildings of
Novodevichy.
The oldest building in the Novodevichy monastery
is the six-column, five-domed Smolensk Cathedral, dedicated to the
icon of our lady of Smolensk. It is located in the center of the
complex between two entrance gates. Available documents date its
construction to 1524-1525. However, fragments of its first floor and
the projecting Central pediment are typical of monastic cathedrals
built later during the reign of Ivan the terrible. Most scholars
agree that the Cathedral was rebuilt in the 1550s or 1560s.
Previously, it was surrounded by four small chapels, reminiscent of
the Annunciation Cathedral in the Kremlin. His frescoes are among
the best in Moscow. At the altar of the funeral of the great but
little-known General Alexey Brusilov, a hero of the First World war,
who made the Brusilov breakthrough.
The Cathedral is the
largest Church of the Novodevichy monastery, but not the only one.
Most of the churches date back to the 1680s, when the monastery was
completely renovated by order of Sofia Alekseyevna (who,
paradoxically, was later imprisoned here). The blood-red walls, two
tall churches outside the gates, a refectory, and residential cells
were designed in the Moscow Baroque style, presumably by the
architect Peter Potapov. In the old Cathedral in 1685, a new bowl
for Holy water and a gilded carved iconostasis were installed. Its
four tiers contain icons of the 16th century, made on the gifts of
Boris Godunov; the fifth level displays icons of leading artists of
the XVII century, Simeon Ushakov and Fyodor Zubov.
The
slender bell tower of the Novodevichy monastery, also commissioned
by Princess Sofia, was built in six tiers at a height of 72 meters,
making it the tallest structure in 18th-century Moscow (after the
bell tower of Ivan the Great in the Kremlin). Six-tiered bell tower
in the Naryshkin style, 72 meters high (late XVII), with alternating
openwork and" deaf " tiers, at that time the highest bell tower in
Moscow after Ivan the Great. There is an opinion (confirmed by an
analysis of proportions) that the bell tower should have been seven
— tiered-but was not completed due to the overthrow of Princess
Sophia in 1689. This white octagonal column seems to combine all the
main elements of the ensemble into one harmonious whole.
Necropolis and cemetery
The necropolis of the Novodevichy
monastery existed already in the 16th century. Like other Moscow
monasteries (in particular, Danilov and Donskoy), the monastery was
a popular place among the Russian nobility as a burial place. Sergei
Solovyov and Alexey Brusilov are only two of the many prominent
Muscovites buried within the monastery walls. The hero of the
Napoleonic campaign Denis Davydov is also buried on the territory.
In 1898-1904, the so-called Novodevichy cemetery was created
near the southern wall. Anton Chekhov was one of the first writers
to be buried in the new cemetery, and Nikolai Gogol was later
reburied here. During the Soviet era, it was turned into the most
high-profile cemetery in the Soviet Union, where Pyotr Kropotkin,
Nikita Khrushchev, Sergei Prokofiev, Dmitry Shostakovich, Konstantin
Stanislavsky, Boris Yeltsin and Mstislav Rostropovich were buried.
In the 1930s, the monastery necropolis was subjected to
"reconstruction", as a result of which only about 100 tombstones out
of 2000 survived. The graves of such figures as the Minister of war
D. A. Milyutin, generals S. S. Apraksin and A. F. Baggovut,
philanthropist I. S. Maltsov, and educator L. I. Polivanov were
lost.
Smolensk cathedral
The first wife of Peter I,
tsarina Evdokia Fyodorovna Lopukhina, became a monk Elena (August
27, 1731).
Tsarevna: Sofia Alekseevna, in schema Sofia (July 3,
1704); Evdokia Alekseevna (may 10, 1712); Ekaterina Alekseevna (may
1, 1718).
Tsarevna: Anna Ivanovna, daughter of Ivan the terrible
(July 20, 1550); Elena Ivanovna Sheremeteva, in the monastic life of
Leonid (December 25, 1596).
Around the Cathedral and the
assumption Church
Abbesses: methodia (Yakushkina) (February 10,
1845); paisia (Nudolskaya) (January 25, 1871); Leonid (Ozerov)
(January 18, 1920); Seraphim (Chernaya) (December 16, 1999).
Nun
Sarah, Treasurer (March 18, 1840).
Nun Feofania, novice of the
monk Elena (December 18, 1511).
Tatiana Levshina, mother of
Metropolitan Plato of Moscow (18 December 1511).
President of the
justice College Yakovlev A. A. (1781) and members of his family.
Heroes of the war of 1812: the poet Denis Vasilyevich Davydov
(1839); Dmitry Mikhailovich Volkonsky (may 7, 1835); Volkonsky S. A.
Generals: Lev korneevich Pashchenko. (1834); Vasily Ivanovich
Timofeev (1850); Mikhail Fyodorovich Orlov (1842); Moscow military
Governor-General Pavel Alekseevich Tuchkov (1864); Minister of war,
field Marshal Dmitry Milyutin (1912).
Participants in the
Decembrist uprising: S. N. Trubetskoy (1860); Alexander Nikolayevich
Muravyov (December 18, 1863); Matvey Ivanovich Muravyov-Apostol
(1886).
Writers: Alexander Aleksandrovich Shakhovskoy (1848);
Mikhail Nikolaevich Zagoskin (1852); Ivan Ivanovich Lazhechnikov
(1869); Alexey feofilaktovich Pisemsky (1881); N. V. Sushkov (1871);
poet and translator Alexey Nikolaevich Pleshcheev (1871).
Historians: Alexander Ivanovich Turgenev (1845); Mikhail Petrovich
Pogodin (1875); Sergey Mikhailovich Solovyov (1879); Church
historian and theologian Gilyarov-Platonov N. P. (1887); count
Alexey Sergeevich Uvarov (1884), scientist-archaeologist, founder of
the Moscow Archaeological Society and Historical Museum).
Philologists: Osip Maksimovich bodyansky (September 6, 1877); Fyodor
Ivanovich Buslaev (1897).
Philosophers: Vladimir Sergeevich
Solovyov (1900); Lev Mikhailovich Lopatin (1920).
Lawyers: E. E.
Luminarsky (1883); M. V. dukhovskoy (1903); Nikolai Lvovich
duvernois (1906).
Professors of medicine: Ostroumov A. A. (1908);
Bubnov S. F. (1909); Golubinin L. E. (1912); rein F. A. (1925).
Generals: Alexey Alekseyevich Brusilov (1926); Yakhontov R.N.
(1924); Andrey Medardovich Zayonchkovsky (1926).
Some members of
the Prokhorov family, owners of the trekhgornaya manufactory and
famous benefactors (the tomb).
The well of Babel
According to legend, on the place where they originally tried to lay
the Novodevichy monastery, a strong key clogged, so that the
construction had to be postponed, and the well and stream were named
Babylon. A slab was placed on this spring, and later a chapel was
laid, which at the turn of the XVIII—XIX centuries Metropolitan
Platon (Levshin) gave to the Kremlin monastery. In 1921, one of the
old nuns explained the origin of the name:
"It is called
Babylonian because, as the tower of Babel was not completed, so
here: they began to build a monastery and the key prevented.»