Top 10 picturesque churches in Russia

Russia is full of interesting places to see and to visit. RBTH chose ten of the most picturesque churches and monasteries in Russia. The first is the Cathedral of St. Sophia in Veliky Novgorod, the oldest church in Russia (1045-1050).

Novodevichy Convent is one of Moscow’s most beautiful architectural sites, established in 1524. It is located on a peninsula of sorts, surrounded on three sides by the Moskva River. The convent comprises 14 buildings, including residential quarters, administrative buildings, bell towers and churches.

The New Jerusalem Monastery was founded in 1656 by Patriarch Nikon. Its design is based on the famous Church of the Resurrection in Jerusalem. Nikon had intended to build a series of holy places in the Moscow suburb of Istra that would resemble the sacred sites of Palestine.

The Trinity Lavra of St Sergius T is located 70 km northeast of Moscow in Sergiev Posad, it was founded in 1337. The monastery is considered the spiritual home of the Russian Orthodox Church and has over 300 resident monks.

One of Russia’s entries in the UNESCO World Heritage List, Kizhi Pogost is located on Kizhi Island in Lake Onega in the Republic of Karelia. It consists simply of a gated church and cemetery. The island contains two large churches (built in 18th century), both original examples of wooden Orthodox architecture. Every building here was made without nails.

With its UNESCO-listed monastery and unspoilt forests and lakes, the Solovetsky archipelago is a place of almost ethereal beauty. For centuries it was home to a remote monastery, but in the 1920s the Solovetsky Special Designation Camp was established by decree of Vladimir Lenin. It was a place where criminals and people who opposed the ideology of the new Soviet state could “redeem” themselves through hard labor. In the early 1990s the monastery was reopened with an exhibition on the upper floor, providing a gruesome exposé of the moral catastrophe that befell the nation during the Gulag era.

The Church of the Intercession of the Holy Virgin on the Nerl River (1165) near Bogolyubovo village is a greatest monument of Russian architecture. Being an important component of the White Monuments of Vladimir and Suzdal, the Church belongs to the World Heritage of UNESCO.

The Boris and Gleb Monastery in Torzhok. It was founded in 1038 by the nobleman Ephrem, at roughly the same time as the Kiev-Pechersk Monastery. The monastery hills afford one of the finest views of an antique Russian town anywhere in the country.

The most ancient structure in the city of Yaroslavl is the Transfiguration Monastery , which was erected on 13th-century foundations. One of the favorite monasteries of Ivan the Terrible, it was turned into a museum 150 years ago. There are six churches open to the public on the territory, which has been landscaped to resemble 18th-century regional architecture.

The restored Kronstadt Naval Cathedral is now the primary tourist attraction of the island town of Kronstadt. Built in 1913 by architect Vasily Kosyakov in the neo-Byzantine style, the cathedral explicitly represents the greatness of the Baltic Fleet.