Yaroslavl: Bell Tower in Spasso-Preobrazhensky Monastery
The most
well-known building in the city is the 'Spaso-Preobrazhensky'. This monastery
was originally founded in the 12th century and thus it, and its cathedral, are
the oldest buildings in the city. The Transfiguration Cathedral itself, built
in the year 1516, is the oldest detached building standing in the city. Typical
for a Russian monastery of the Middle Ages, the Spaso-Preobrazhensky Monastery
in Yaroslavl was not built to be no more than a place of worship, but also to
be a citadel and kremlin in case, in times of war, there was a need for such a
facility. This is still visible today as the monastery is surrounded by a thick
16th century, white-painted wall, complete with watchtowers and embattlements.
Within these walls stand the magisterial churches, which, with their
asymmetrically-ordered towers and beautifully decorated interiors, make for
wonderful examples of traditional Russian sacral architecture. In addition to
this there is a gatehouse church, with which the monastery's dungeons and
treasury were connected. The monastery has long had a place in the history of
Yaroslavl and continues, albeit nowadays as a museum, to play a significant
role in the life of the city. It was largely thanks to the impregnability of
the monastery that, during the time of the Troubles, the Russian peasants' army
was able to defend the city and then go on to liberate Moscow from its
Polish-Lithuanian occupiers. At the end of the 18th century, the oldest known
text of the Tale of Igor's Campaign, the most renknowned work of
Russian-language literature from the Middle Ages, was found in the library of the
SPaso-Preobrazhensky Monastery. This masterpiece is now on display as a
permanent exhibition within the monastery, along with other works of the age
and an exhibition showing the conditions an author of the era would have lived
in.
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