Description of the attraction
The Borisoglebskaya Church at the Arbat Gate was demolished in the 30s of the last century under the pretext of reconstructing Arbat Square. At the end of the century, to celebrate the 850th anniversary of the founding of Moscow, a chapel-chapel in the name of Boris and Gleb with the Tikhonovsky side-altar was laid on the square. True, the chapel was built not on the site of the Borisoglebsk church, but on the site of the Church of Tikhon the Wonderworker, which stood nearby and was also demolished at the dawn of Soviet power. In the appearance of the church-chapel, they tried to repeat the appearance of the church of Boris and Gleb, and a memorial sign was installed in the place where it stood.
The first church in honor of the martyrs Boris and Gleb was built in the 15th century. It has been reliably established that at the end of the century the church burned down during another large Moscow fire, which began in the building of St. Nicholas Church on Peski, located next door.
In 1527, the church was already known as a stone one. It was built by order of the Moscow prince Vasily III. His son, Tsar Ivan the Terrible, raised the status of this church to a cathedral - one of seven in Moscow. In this temple, the king prayed before going on a military campaign, and took part in the processions of the cross. Here he was solemnly greeted after the capture of Polotsk in 1563.
Another building of the temple was built in the second half of the 18th century according to the project of Karl Blank and with the financial participation of Count Alexei Bestuzhev, a statesman during the reign of Elizabeth I and Catherine II. For the right to rebuild the temple, the Bestuzhevs competed with representatives of another well-known family - the Musin-Pushkins, who had their own side-altar and family tomb in the church. Work lasted from 1763 to 1768, the church acquired chapels in honor of the Kazan Icon of the Mother of God and the Resurrection of the Word.
During the Patriotic War of 1812, the church did not suffer, on the contrary, the nearest churches were assigned to it, some of them were even dismantled, and their stone went to the construction of new side-altars of the Borisoglebsk church.
