Novodevichy Convent
The red and white crenellated
walls and golden domes of
Novodevichy Convent make it one of
Moscow's most attractive
monasteries. Situated a short walk
from the Luzhniki Sports Stadium,
in a tranquil southern suburb of
Moscow, inside a bend in the
Moscow River, the Convent's leafy
gardens are a pleasure to stroll
in during the summer months and a
welcome retreat from the bustle of
the city.
Novodevichy, or "New Maidens
Convent" in English, was founded
by Vasily III in 1524 to
commemorate the recapture of
Smolensk from the Lithuanians in
1514. The convent's main cathedral
was consecrated in honor of the
Smolenskaya Icon of the Mother of
God Hodigitria, which according to
legend was painted by St.Luke
himself.
The convent is rather like a
miniature Kremlin and was built in
1525 in the same style as the
Kremlin Cathedral of the
Assumption. In the early 17th
century, during the reign of Boris
Godunov, the walls of the
cathedral were ornamented with
frescoes representing historic
episodes in the struggle for the
formation of a centralized Russian
state. In the 1680s a team of
Russian artists and craftsmen,
including K. Mikhailov and O.
Andreyev, created one of the
finest ornamental works of the
period — a multi-tiered
iconostasis, carved from solid
gold.
Novodevichy was Moscow's richest
convent and many wives and widows
of tsars and boyars and their
daughters and sisters entered the
convent and in doing so handed
over all their jewels, pearls,
gold and silver. Among the
convents more notable residents
were Tsarina Irina Godunova, who
withdrew to Novodevichy after the
death of her husband Tsar Fyodor,
and was accompanied by her
brother, the boyar Boris Godunov,
who remained there until he was
crowned in the monastery grounds
in 1589.
As soon as the convent was
founded, a cemetery was opened on
its grounds, which subsequently
became a traditional burial place
for the church dignitaries, noble
families and feudal lords of
Moscow and later on, in the 19th
century, of the intelligentsia and
merchants. The cemetery is the
resting place of Sofia Alexeyevna
and Yevdokia Fyodorovna, the
relatives of Tsar Peter the Great,
the partisan Denis Davydov, poet
and hero of the Napoleonic War of
1812, the historians S. Solovyov
and Pagodin and the philosopher
Vladimir Solovyov among others.
The composers Shostokovich and
Scriabin and the famous art
collectors Pavel and Sergei
Tretyakov are also buried there.
Nikita Krushchev was given a
famous memorial gravestone,
crafted in black and white marble
by the sculptor Ernst Neizvestny
and symbolizing the ambiguity and
contradictory nature of
Krushchev's period in power.
Novodevichy was closed in 1922 by
the Soviet Government, its nuns
evicted and the convent building
used to house a "Museum of Women's
Emancipation". The convent was
later re-opened as a museum to
Novodevichy's history and in 1964
became the official residence of
the Orthodox Church's Metropolitan
of Kruitsky and Kolomensky. The
entire complex is now open to
visitors.
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