Город Владимир Путешествие по древним городам Владимирской земли Старый Владимир Old Russian Towns Памятники архитектуры Музеи Музеи, экспозиции

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It is the Church of the Assumption and was built in 1649, as the inscription by the entrance tells us, "thanks to the labour and efforts of the Vladimir mer­chants Patrikei, Andrei and Grigory Denisov, sons of Rodionov, and their nephews, and the Vladimir artisans, Vassili Obrosimov, son of Khmylov, and Semion, son of Somov . . .". These people were wealthy traders and artisans, the founders of the powerful merchant families of old Vladimir. The church and old descriptions of it enable us to form a picture of the tastes of Vladimir's "third estate" in the seventeenth century and the mas­terly skill of the craftsmen and painters of that period which saw the final flowering of early Russian art.

The church, which was restored in 1961 by Alexander and Igor Stoletov, is beautifully situated on the southern edge of the town heights where the twelfth-century ar­chitects erected their stone cathedrals. It crowns the eastern section of the old town's south facade. It is possible that this position and the relatively low ground in comparison with the town centre were the reasons which prompted the architects to erect such a tall building and crown it with a tight bunch of five large, onion-shaped cupolas. As a result the church stood out clearly in the general panorama of the town and could easily be seen from the other side of the Klyazma and from the Middle Town.

The ensemble consists of the church itself with a refectory and bell-tower on its west side - a design which we have already seen in the Church of St. Nicholas at the Galleys. The graceful, rectangular main body of the church is partitioned by flat pilaster strips and crowned with a rich cornice surmounted by deeply re­cessed pointed kokoshnik gables. Behind these gables rises another tier of elaborate, semi-circular kokoshniks. The central section of the roof is crowned with five onion-shaped cupolas standing on bases decorated with small, pointed kokoshniks covered with tin-plated iron. The cupolas were originally covered with shingles ar­ranged in fish-scale pattern which gradually acquired a silvery sheen. The north and west walls of the church are adjoined by the covered arcade of the parvis. Porches lead up to the entrances. There is a particularly elabo­rate porch on the north side facing the main street. The little dome of the refectory was originally covered with shining green tiles.

The remarkable skill of the architect is particularly evident in the design of the bell-tower. Its lower rectan­gular section housed the first bell-tier and has wide semi­circular arches in the outer walls. In most bell-towers this rectangular section supports a tall octagon on which the main bell-tier rests. In this case, however, the architect dispensed with the octagonal section. The bell-tier is exceptionally attractive. It is very elongated in form and its diagonal surfaces and arches are narrower than those in the centre. The small windows in the tent-shaped roof are also elongated and narrow. The latter served as a resonator for the bells and was also covered with tin-plated iron.

The church originally had a small monastery attached to it and was surrounded by living quarters and other buildings enclosed by a wall in which there were two stone gateways. The two entrances of the Holy Gates were topped with tent-shaped roofs each surmounted with a small, green-tiled cupola. A similar specimen has survived in Suzdal and we shall be examining this later.

Thus the church was originally the focal point in a picturesque group of stone and wooden buildings with the green and silvery roofs of which the craftsmen of old Russia were so fond.

According to old records the interior of the church was just as beautiful as its exterior. The walls of the parvis were decorated with rich painting, traces of which can still be found near the north and west doors. To the left of the latter there is also the carved account of the church's foundation, contained in a white stone niche decorated with two kokoshniks. The refectory contained two stoves covered with green, patterned tiles. The tall, light interior of the church was also decorated with wall-paintings, and the architects paid special attention to its accoustics placing resonators in the walls. The icons of the iconostasis were framed with bands of stamped silver, and the Holy Doors and tent-shaped canopy over the altar were inlaid with gold and silver and painted. The church's "hollow candles", now in the town museum, give an idea of the wealth of intricate decora­tion and colour of the interior. They are hollow wax cylinders standing on a stone base and decorated with intricate patterns in coloured wax of striking beauty and rhythmical design. Here too the church's founders did not neglect the opportunity of immortalising their names, which appear in the curves and flourishes of the Church Slavonic inscription round the top of the cylinder. The construction and decoration of the stone church was not simply a form of thanksgiving to God by the wealthy families of Vladimir for "helping" them to acquire their riches. It also served to emphasise the increasing power of the rich merchants and artisans who were gradually ousting the feudal nobility and landowners. The artistic tastes of the ordinary people, from whose ranks the rich merchants had risen, are strikingly evident in the art produced by the wealthy traders and artisans in the seventeenth century. This particular church is interesting because it shows clearly that the indigenous folk ele­ments which predominated in the art and architecture of Moscow, the towns of Yaroslavl and Kostroma on the Volga, and other important economic and cultural cen­tres, had penetrated to Vladimir which, in the seven­teenth century, was little more than a provincial back­water. We shall see further evidence of this in the paint­ing of the cathedral of the Princess Convent.

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