Description of the attraction
The Church of Michael the Archangel is located in the Mare Settlement near the Crow Stone, which became the site of the legendary battle of Prince Alexander Nevsky with the knights of the Teutonic Order in 1242. In memory of this difficult battle, the mound was named in honor of Alexander Nevsky. The location of the church on a slightly elevated shore of the bay, namely 40 m about the coastline washed by water, suggests that the temple is made with a real artistic talent of Pskov architects.
At one time, the Church of Michael the Archangel served as a kind of landmark or beacon on the huge trade route "from the Varangians to the Greeks." Architectural and constructive solutions of the ancient church give the right to consider it a monument of the highest class of Pskov architecture of the 15th century, which has been preserved with an eight-slope roof.
The main volume of the Church of the Archangel Michael is a three-nave, three-apse, four-pillar temple with semi-cylindrical and without steps vaults, which are thrown from the north to the south with the help of the central nave, which is also done with the transcept, only from the east to the west. The walls are connected to the pillars by means of two vertical arched tiers, forming strong foundations in the corners, intended for the dammed vaults, as well as the drum above them. Behind the southwestern pillar, right at the choir level, there is a tent - a kind of room that was used to store various church literature. To date, choirs are completely absent. In order to get into the tent, you need to climb the ladder. Lighting of the tent is accompanied by one small window located in the south wall of the quadrangle. The temple pillars, located on the west side, have a clear correct rounding, and at a height of more than 2 meters they smoothly turn into a square shape. The transition is made in the form of small rounded shelves-rollers that run along the perimeter of the entire pillar. A small part of the eastern wall, enclosing a graceful pre-altar arch, has small roundings at the corners, which face the location of the eastern pillars. The altar and diaconnik have semi-cylindrical coverings, the axes of which are directed from west to east, and then are connected to vertically located apse semi-cylinders.
The central apse is an altar, which is covered with a semi-domed vault, equipped with a support on a vertical semicircle. In the decorative design of the quadrangle, there are many voices located in the sails and in the tympans of the vaults that support the drum. Apparently, the drum was folded with pots, following the example of popular monuments of this period, which was done to reduce the weight of the load on the pillars and bearing vaults.
In the altar itself, there is one hewn, made at a later time, window, equipped with a high arched lintel. The window openings in the altar and the altar are also hewn and have glazing and iron bars, while the side windows in the altar and the altar face the side of the facade. The most interesting of all are the two unfinished windows: one - the upper one is located in the southern wall of the church quadrangle, and the other - a small window emerges from the tent on the same wall. Most likely, the windows located on the drum are also hewn. In the form of a protruding triangle, there is a border above the window, which is characteristic of the monuments of Pskov architecture.
The chapel of the Holy Trinity located in the Church of Michael the Archangel is covered with horizontal beams; its thickness reaches more than a meter. The huge window openings of the Holy Trinity side-altar face the southern and northern sides and are located, as they say, rhythmically, with facade decor and grilles.
As for the decorative decoration of the facades of the quadrangle, it can be noted that it is very modest and carries only ornaments typical for the city of Pskov, made in the form of hollows and triangles. Belts of this kind adorn not only the apse, but also the drum, which on top of the belt of the ornament itself is decorated with a thin belt of arkature made of arched stepped niches.
