Description of the attraction
The Church of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul in Novaya Basmannaya Sloboda is one of eight churches that Emperor Peter the Great personally had a hand in creating. Seven of them were built in St. Petersburg, and only one was built in Moscow. The emperor made a drawing for each of these temples; all these drawings and sketches are now in the storage of St. Isaac's Cathedral in the northern capital. For the construction of the Peter and Paul Church in Moscow, Peter also contributed two thousand rubles.
The first church in the name of Peter and Paul on this site was, of course, wooden. It was built at the very end of the 17th century at the expense of the inhabitants of the Captain's Sloboda - army officers. The construction of the stone building, in the fate of which the Russian emperor took such an active part, began in 1705 under the direction of the architect Ivan Zarudny. True, several years later, the work was suspended by Peter's decree, which prohibited the construction of stone buildings anywhere other than St. Petersburg. The work was resumed only in the 1720s, at this stage they were led by the architect Ivan Michurin.
In 1737, a devastating fire took place in Moscow, but the Peter and Paul Cathedral suffered less damage than other buildings. The fire and invasion of 1812 caused more damage to the temple. Closer to the middle of the 18th century, a bell tower was erected, the project of which was developed by another famous architect Karl Blank.
In Soviet times, the temple was closed in 1935, but before that it became the residence of the leader of the so-called "renovationists" Alexander Vvedensky. After the closure, the building of the former church housed institutions - from a kindergarten to a hostel. The building was transferred to the church in the 90s.
Today the temple is active. It is located on Novaya Basmannaya Street and is a recognized example of the "Peter's Baroque". Among the shrines of the temple is the image of the holy apostles Peter and Paul, the only surviving icon from the pre-revolutionary decoration of the church.
