Description of the attraction
The Cathedral of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary was founded on August 15, 1805. This was due to the following events. After Myshkin received the status of a city in 1777, a plan for the development of the city was developed, which was later revised and adjusted more than once. The main architectural dominant of this plan was the Assumption Church. It was founded in the center of a shopping area on a hill in the middle of shopping malls, houses of nobles and merchants.
The main cathedral square of Myshkin, located between Nikolskaya and Rybinskaya streets, was built up in the early 19th century with buildings in the classical style, most of them have survived to our time and together with the cathedral make up a single architectural ensemble.
The cathedral was built in 1805-1820 according to the project developed by the architect Johannes Manfrini with funds donated by the townspeople: the merchant Kozma Ivanovich Drozhdenkov and Ivan Andronovich Zamyatkin. The construction was carried out by an artel of masons from Yaroslavl.
The five-domed church with a three-tiered bell tower was rather grandiose for a county town. He still amazes with his majesty. The central volume of the Assumption Cathedral is a quadrangle with a raised apse, which is the base of a wide drum, covered with a flat dome. A three-tiered bell tower and a small refectory adjoin it from the west. The southern and northern facades of the quadrangle, as well as the western facade of the lower tier of the bell tower, are decorated with porticoes with an Ionic order with triangular pediments.
The architect, striving to increase the side domes, and trying to make them proportional to the main dome, introduced into the composition of the temple four semi-cylindrical volumes from the base to the cornice, which adjoin the eastern and western walls of the quadrangle and are the basis of the drums for the heads located on the sides.
The bell tower, visually balancing the massive apse of the temple, looks somewhat ponderous today. This happened as a result of many later losses and rebuilding of the temple. The original appearance of the bell tower was more graceful and light. As a result of the rebuilding of the cathedral, he lost through windows and domes above the domes in the drums. The cathedral, like the bell tower, began to look noticeably heavier.
The cathedral was painted in 1829-1832 by the artel of the famous Upper Volga artist Timofei Medvedev, a native of serfs, a native of the village of Teikovo (today the Ivanovo region). When decorating the temple, painters strove to achieve the effect of a rich interior decoration at a minimum cost. Therefore, they used the grisaille technique, which imitates cornices, columns, and stucco moldings. The compositions dedicated to the themes of the Holy Scriptures are painted in reddish-brown tones and decorated with figured frames. Under the central dome in the sails are the traditional images of the Evangelists, and in the altar is the New Testament Trinity. The inscription on the south wall of the temple informs about the date of the temple construction. On the ceiling and walls of the refectory are Old Testament scenes. The craftsmen of Medvedev's artel also painted the Resurrection Cathedral in Bolshoye Soly and the Transfiguration Cathedral in Uglich.
The painting of the cathedral was restored in 1866 by the master A. E. Smirnov, colored stained-glass windows were made for the windows.
In 1929, the Assumption Cathedral was closed, the property was plundered, the bells were removed from the bell tower and smashed. The bell tower was used as a water tower, and a warehouse was housed in the temple.
In 1991, the Assumption Cathedral was returned to the faithful. The restoration work was completed only by 2009. Since the temple was built like a summer one, services are held there only in the warm season. In September 2010, the Cathedral was visited by Patriarch Kirill of Moscow. He addressed those gathered in the church with the First Hierarchical Word and presented the church with the Tikhvin Icon of the Most Holy Theotokos.
A picturesque panorama of the city of Myshkin opens from the bell tower of the Assumption Cathedral. In 2005, in the bell tower, on one of the tiers, an ancient storage was opened, where you can get acquainted with fragments of the interior details of the Assumption Cathedral and church vestments.
