Moscow Guide
The Kitay-gorod
The Church of the Trinity on Nikitnikov
Opening time: The only part of the church open to the public is the lower side-altar (11am–3pm)
The exuberant colours and asymmetrical form of the Church of the Trinity on Nikitnikov are all the more striking for being hemmed in by the anonymous premises of the Moscow Regional Council and the former Central Committee of the Communist Party. The church defies its confinement with an explosion of decorative features: white ogee-shaped nalichniki and kokoshniki, columns and cornices contrasting with crimson walls, green roofs and domes. Its height and dynamism are accentuated by a tent-roofed stairway climbing above a deep arcaded undercroft, and an open pyramid-spired belfry that would have soared above the wooden houses of the medieval Kitay-gorod.
Erected in 1635–53 by the wealthy merchant Grigory Nikitnikov, who stashed his valuables in its basement, the church was squatted by numerous families after the Revolution, before being turned into a museum in 1967 (it is still classified as a museum rather than a church).