Moscow Guide
Taganka and Zayauze
The Novospasskiy Monastery
Opening time: Daily 8am–8pm
When you first see its walls from the river, or its golden-yellow belltower above the rooftops, the Novospasskiy Monastery (Novospasskiy monastyr) looks grander than the better-known Novodevichie or Donskoy monasteries. Indeed, it claims to be the oldest in Moscow, tracing its foundation back to the twelfth-century reign of Yuri Dolguruky, who established a monastery dedicated to the Saviour on the site of the present-day Danilov Monastery. In 1300, Ivan I transferred this to the Kremlin, whence Ivan III relocated it to its present site in 1490 – hence the appellation, "New Monastery of the Saviour". Subsequently razed by the Tatars, most of the existing complex dates from the seventeenth century, when the monastery was surrounded by a thick wall with seven bastions, which preserved it through the Time of Troubles and determined its grim role in modern times, when it was used as a concentration camp by the Bolsheviks, who imprisoned and shot their victims in the almshouse and hospital alongside the northern wall. It then became an orphanage, an NKVD archive, a furniture factory, and finally a drunk-tank. Returned to the Church in 1991, the buildings are slowly being restored, but the ravages of its past are still evident within its walls.
The Cathedral of the Transfiguration of the Saviour (sobor Spasa Preobrazheniya) is a medieval-style edifice with huge arched gables and helmet-shaped domes, erected on the site of the original cathedral in 1645. The cathedral's lofty nave is dominated by a massive gilt-framed iconostasis that includes the icons of the Image of Christ and Our Lady of Smolensk, a gift from Tsar Mikhail's mother, who became a nun in later life. On either side are shrines containing relics from Kiev, including a piece of the Virgin's robe, which was a wedding gift from the Byzantine empire to Ivan the Great. The walls are covered in frescoes representing the genealogy of the sovereigns of Russia from St Olga to Tsar Alexei, and the descent of the kings of Israel, while the refectory stairway is flanked by images of ancient Greek philosophers.