Description of the attraction
In the city of Vladimir, there is the Assumption Church, which has become a unique monument of Russian architecture. It is known that the preparatory work for the construction took place in 1644. The Assumption Church was built in 1649 with a generous donation from the townspeople: Basil, his son, son Semyon Somov, as well as Grigory and Andrey Denisov. These people were wealthy people from a noble family, merchants and ancestors of merchant families of the pre-revolutionary city of Vladimir.
Detailed descriptions of the Assumption Church have come down to our time, which became a symbol of Vladimir Old Russian art of the 17th century. The temple looked incredibly beautiful on the southern edge of the majestic city heights, because it was here that white-stone cathedrals were erected in the 12th century.
The Church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary is the completion of the eastern wing of the facade of the city of Vladimir. Most likely, precisely because of the low relief, in accordance with the city buildings, the architects decided to build a high temple, the wedding of which was carried out with a bunch of large-scale and closely planted five onion-shaped chapters. The church is perfectly visible among the city buildings, and the view of it opens even from behind the river.
The temple is made in the style that was most typical for the Yaroslavl and Moscow churches. A distinctive feature of the church is its high white-stone walls, crowned with many kokoshniks. The Assumption Church is a temple equipped with a refectory room and a bell tower located at its end. The division of the quadruple is carried out with the help of shoulder blades, and the slender quadruple has a completion in the form of a large cornice with depressions of graceful kokoshniks. Above the kokoshniks made of "white" tinned iron there are five onion domes, which were originally covered with a scaly wooden ploughshare, which gradually acquired a silvery color. On the western and northern sides, the church is surrounded by an open arcade of the porch. All available entrances have staircases. The head of the refectory used to shine with green-painted tiles. The lower quadrangle of the bell tower was used as the arrangement of the first ringing tier, cut by wide semicircular arches. A distinctive feature of the bell tower was the elevation of the high "pillar" of the quadruple above the quad, which raises the ringing tier, while the architect lowered the octagon somewhat, but the tier turned out to be very refined.
There was a small monastery under the Assumption Church, which is why it was almost completely surrounded by residential and service buildings, as well as by a fence, which had a large stone gate. The holy two-span gates ended with a pair of tents equipped with small green tiled domes. It turns out that the temple was part of a picturesque ensemble of nearby stone and wooden buildings.
According to the records of the old inventory, the original temple interior was also decorated and bright. The walls of the porch used to be completely covered with colored painting, and its fragments are still kept near the western and northern entrances. In the past, there were two stoves in the refectory room, which were faced with elegant patterned tiles. The premises of the temple are distinguished not only by their large size, but also by their extraordinary lightness. The temple iconostases were bordered with ribbons of embossed silver, and the doors were painted with gold leaf. In one of the museums in the city of Vladimir, the so-called "skinny candles" are kept, which give an idea of the decoration of the Assumption Church. Cylinders made of wax, standing on white stone pedestals, became a special decoration of the temple. The surface of these cylinders was covered with colored wax, which was applied as an ornament. It is known that with the help of wax Vladimir architects were able to immortalize their names inside the church.
The Assumption Church became a vivid example of the fact that even the city of Vladimir, located on the outskirts, was not aloof from the then contemporary folk art, progressing in Moscow. Today the temple belongs to the Old Believer Orthodox Church.
