Yuriev Monastery, Veliky Novgorod

“Located three versts south of the city, on the left high and picturesque bank of the Volkhov, the Yuriev Monastery seems from a distance like some kind of white-stone fairy tale, especially in spring, when Ilmen-lake, Volkhov and all small rivers that surround it, merge into a solid sea, among which a lonely island rises, all covered with churches, towers and monastic buildings, ”wrote Igor Grabar in his pre-revolutionary“ History of Russian Art ”.

After a hundred years, little has changed: the same wide spill of Ilmen, the source of the Volkhov, the walls and domes of the ancient monastery, except that Novgorod has grown and the Yuryev monastery now finds itself in the city, on its southern outskirts. From afar, the monastery retains the most fabulous appearance.

“However, the tale gradually disappears as you approach it, and the unpleasant lines of the bell tower and other new buildings grow. From all the charm remains only one cathedral, fabulously beautiful and close, mighty majestic satin of its walls, devoid of the slightest pattern and go to the sky, on which the wondrously found silhouettes of three chapters are drawn, "continues Igor Grabar, and the reader's attention immediately switches: unpleasant bell tower, what a fabulously beautiful cathedral?

After all, it seems to the uninitiated (and the guides are in no hurry to dedicate the uninitiated) that all the beauty of the Yuryev Monastery comes straight from the legendary times of Yaroslav the Wise, who, according to legend, founded the monastery in 1030. Facts known to historians, however, do not confirm either the impression being created, nor the popular legend.

The first monastery arose around 1119, as reported by the Novgorod first chronicle: "laying down the Curiec hegumen and Prince Vsevolod, the stone church of the monastery of St. George Novogorod". St. George's Cathedral, the main church of the monastery of the holy martyr warrior George (Yuri), is the very same cathedral that Grabar called fabulously beautiful 100 years ago. Today, the 900-year-old temple, crowned with three domes, evokes the same enthusiastic feelings.

The initiator of the construction was the Grand Duke of Kiev Mstislav the Great, but since state affairs kept him in Kiev, direct control over the construction of the grandiose temple Mstislav handed over to his son Vsevolod, who reigned then in Novgorod, and Hegumen Kyriyak (Kyuriak). Thanks to the chronicles, the names of not only the princes who laid the temple are known, but even the name of its builder, Master Peter. This is the earliest mention of the name of the architect in the Russian chronicles. The date and circumstances of the consecration of the cathedral are known - July 12, 1130, in the presence of the Bishop of Novgorod John Popyan and Hegumen Isaiah (Cyriac died two years before the consecration of the temple). In the 1990s, an inscription on the cathedral wall, found during the restoration, was added to the chronicle data: “The knight was on Feodorovo dne Mstislavo”. Thus, the memory of the visit of the St. George Monastery by its founder, the Grand Duke of Kiev Mstislav, to his name day (Theodore - the name of Mstislav at baptism), has survived centuries and has reached our days.

St. George's Cathedral is the only ancient building of St. George Monastery, the rest only create an atmosphere of antiquity. The slender “Old Russian” bell tower was designed by the great Karl Rossi (however, it’s her silhouette that Grabar calls “unpleasant”), in general, all the local buildings, except for the monastery cathedral, were built with money left over from Catherine’s favorites — the Counts of Orlovs. St. George’s Cathedral also did not escape the consequences of the monastery’s prosperity in the 19th century — it acquired helmeted domes in the times of Pushkin, and not at all of Nestor the Chronicler.

Since its foundation, the Yuriev Monastery has not suffered from the lack of attention of various properties. This place was seldom serene: here, in the middle of the meadows at the source of the Volkhov, everything was always boiling - intrigue, passion, scrapping the old and the urgent construction of the new. And during the Novgorod independence, and after joining Moscow, the St. George Monastery remained the richest in Novgorod. From the 12th century, the Yuriev rectors were at the same time archimandrites of Veliky Novgorod, being at the head of the whole monasticism of the Novgorod land.

After each disaster (the monastery was burned when Dmitry Donskoy and Ivan III's armys approached Novgorod, the troops of Stefan Batory and Jacob Delagardi ruined it, in the 1770s it was poorer by peaceful means after the secularization of church lands). In the Pushkin era, under Archimandrite Photius, a friend of Admiral Shishkov and Count Arakcheev, the monastic capital totaled about 23 million rubles, an astronomical sum for those times. War, politics and big money - what stability is there.

In the twentieth century, the monastery suffered from both the Soviet atheists and the German invaders. And only St. George's Cathedral miraculously survived all these storms almost unchanged. Walls, arches, chapters - straight from the XII century. True, almost nothing was preserved from the original decoration - in the 1820s, at the expense of Countess Orlova-Chesmenskaya, a new elegant painting was made, destroying the 12th-century frescoes. However, the original frescoes from the time of Mstislav can still be seen in the northwest dome of the cathedral. And the most ancient icons were taken to Moscow by the order of Ivan the Terrible, and now the “Ustyug Annunciation” from Yuriev is the pride of the Tretyakov Gallery.

Since the 1990s, the Yuriev Monastery has been active. The former greatness that Igor Grabar managed to find in the pre-revolutionary years of the twentieth century cannot be returned. However, now the monastic territory is well-kept, the buildings have been restored, bus tours from Novgorod to the monastery and to the neighboring museum of wooden architecture “Vitoslavlitsy” arrive one after another. In addition to the usual route of the groups - from the main gate to St. George's Cathedral and back - it is worth going to the monastery small gates leading to the river to see Lake Ilmen and the source of the Volkhov.

LOCAL FEATURES
On the territory of the Yuriev Monastery are located:
- St. George's Cathedral (1119–1130), the main temple of the monastery. The height of 32 meters, of all the Novgorod churches is inferior in size only to the St. Sophia Cathedral. St. George's Cathedral is crowned with three asymmetrically located chapters.
- Holy Cross Cathedral (1823). It has 5 chapters in blue, on which 208 eight-pointed stars are placed.
- The Savior Cathedral (1823–1824). It is adjacent to the Archimandrite Corps.
- The four-tier bell tower (1838–1841). Height 52 meters, built by architect Sokolov, designed by Karl Rossi. For reasons unknown, it does not look harmonious.
- Church of the Icon of the Mother of God "Burning Bush" (1828).
- The temple in honor of the Cathedral of the Holy Archangel Michael (1831). Located in the south-eastern tower built in 1760.

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