The Golden Gate in Vladimir - a symbol of the greatness and power of ancient Russia!
Vladimir's Golden Gate a precious monument of ancient Russian architecture. This white-stone portal seems to open up a space-time tunnel leading from the modern city to Vladimir Andrey Bogolyubsky, and from there, through Kiev and Constantinople, into the depths of history, to Jerusalem and Rome.
Golden Gate is located almost in the center of modern Vladimir and already looks familiar: the fortress gate with turrets in the corners and the church on top. Try to mentally remove these turrets and the design of the top, which arose only by 1810. Something unusual will remain: a huge stone arch to the height of four elephants, 14 meters high. Elephants, however, to the middle of the XII century in the Vladimir region lived, and such a huge opening in no way justified in terms of fortification. After all, the smaller the gate, the more convenient it is to defend them.
But the Golden Gate is not an ordinary fortress building. First, the name refers to Christian symbolism. The golden gates of Jerusalem, into which the Messiah will enter, are mentioned in the prophecy of Ezekiel. They are also a symbol of the immaculate conception: at this gate leading to the Temple, the father of the future Virgin Mary Joachim met his wife Anna, who learned that they would have a child. And through this gate Jesus entered the Jerusalem. Golden Gate in Constantinople connected with the symbolism of the Roman tradition of triumphal arches, and Kiev followed Constantinople.
For Prince Andrey Bogolyubsky, who resolutely rejected the tradition and created a capital city in the desert north-east of Russia from a clean sheet, the Golden Gate was a kind of manifesto - a reminder of Kiev, and of Constantinople, and of Jerusalem. Thoughts about the greatness of Rome, perhaps, too, were not alien to him. In any case, the first triumphal entry of the prince with an army into the city occurred immediately after the construction of the gate-arch: in 1164 an important victory was won over Volga Bulgaria.
Vladimir Golden Gate, like Constantinople, stood on the southwestern edge of the city. Traveler passed over the bridge multimeter trench filled with water before the gate pad and through the great arch entered the shaft ring. There he saw in front of him the princely palaces with the stone churches of the Savior and George, and behind them - the wall of the inner fortress, the Peverny town of Vladimir Monomakh. A little distance away, on the edge of a hill above Klyazma, the Assumption Cathedral was towering, protected by another stone tower with a gate church in the name of the parents of the virgin Mary, Joachim and Anna ... Imagine how this ancient triumphal arch looked on the edge of a city that had just been built in the forest edge and plains, among spacious meadows. How did people perceive it who saw nothing in life above a wooden hut covered with bark and branches.
The Arch of the Golden Gate saw both Alexander Nevsky and Mikhail of Tver and Dmitry Donskoy - the Grand Dukes of Vladimir for four hundred years solemnly ascended the throne in this city. After the consecration of the patriarch in Constantinople, Russian metropolitans, who had moved to Kiev from Kiev in 1299, entered the Golden Gate. Today, a white-stone arch is circled by cars, and every tourist can repeat the triumphal entrance. The Golden Gate is especially beautiful at sunset, when the sun tints a white stone slightly, and at night, when the noisy city life of a modern city is moving away. At night, of course, the gate is highlighted.
A small collection of weapons from different eras and a small but spectacular artistic attraction, a diorama depicting the assault of Vladimir by Mongolian troops in 1238, is displayed on the upper platform of the Golden Gate. Image, layout, light and sound - the work of the same Efim Deshalyt, to whom we owe the diode "Fight for Maloyaroslavets".
HISTORY
The famous Golden Gate of Constantinople became the architectural model for the Vladimir gates. The triumphal arch of the emperor Theodosius - the classical Roman arch that forms the solemn entry of the victorious emperor into the city - was later built into the fortress walls. On both sides, it is clamped by powerful cubes of defensive towers, lined with marble slabs, between which it is impossible to push a knife’s edge, as John VI Cantacuzine wrote. The gates were covered with gilded bronze reliefs - hence the name. According to the historian of architecture, TP Timofeyeva, it reflects “not only imperial luxury and greatness of earthly power, but also the supra world radiance of Christianity.” Behind the Golden Gate began the main street of Constantinople, Mesa, leading to the temple of Sophia and the imperial palaces.
Something similar was the Golden Gate in Kiev, built by Yaroslav the Wise, but from them in the XVIII century there were only two piles of stones left. Yes, and from those stones, the merciless restoration of 1982 did not preserve any traces: the present recreated gate is the fruit of fantasy of the 20th century. But our Vladimir happily kept his ancient main entrance.
The Church at the Golden Gate is dedicated to "The position of the honest Reese of the Most Holy Theotokos in Vlacherna." The Feast of the Deposition of the Day - the remembrance of how the clothes of the Virgin Mary, kept in the Vlaherna temple of Constantinople, whose land, according to an old tradition and prayer, was immersed in the waters of the Bosphorus, in 860 saved Constantinople from the invasion of the ship of honor Ruses. In the same Blachernae church in 910, another miracle happened, seen by Andrey Yurodiv: the Virgin Mary stretched a veil over the worshipers, promising them protection and protection from the Saracens besieging the city. In memory of this, Prince Andrew, at the same time when the Golden Gate was built, established the Feast of the Protection of the Virgin in Russia and laid the Church of the Intercession on the Nerl. Two temples, the Intercession and the Provisions of Reese at the Golden Gate, overshadowed the way to Vladimir - a city under the protection of the Virgin Mary. The wonderworking Vladimir Icon, brought by Prince Andrei from Vyshgorod, was kept in the heart of the city - in the Assumption Cathedral.
In 1469, the Moscow princes remembered the Golden Gate, and the Church of the Deposition of the Rocks repaired Vasily Yermolin, a merchant, and a farm worker, a famous organizer of construction work. He decorated the Spasskaya Tower of the Moscow Kremlin: it was then that a stone sculpture of the equestrian George the Victorious appeared on it. Ermolin restored and collapsed 13th century cathedral in Yuryev-Polsky. This work can be considered the first restoration in Russia, when instead of building a new church, we tried to reproduce the old one as accurately as possible using fragments of its stone decor. Judging by the surviving drawings and drawings, Yermolin treated the church at the Golden Gate just as carefully.
According to legend, the carriage of Catherine II was stuck in the Golden Gate, but the empress forbade them to be demolished, ordering for the freedom of travel only to tear down the ramparts on the sides. To believe in it seriously, however, is difficult: it is too painful the gates are wide.
By the 18th century, the gates affected by many fires were already in poor condition. A crumbling church did not work. Means for repair for a long time could not be found. Only at the very beginning of the 19th century, powerful buttresses, hidden by extensions with small “fortress” turrets in the corners, were built around the gates. The church at the top of the gate was dismantled and rebuilt. However, in the future, services in this church could not be made regular, and the wooden staircase should be kept in proper order, so that practical Vladimir merchants had already planned to place a city water station on the gate instead of a useless temple. In the outbuildings there is a police station with a prisoner, a firefighters equipment depot and three shops that rented premises. “Inappropriate use” lasted for a very long time: for a hundred years, in 1947, the archive of the Ministry of Internal Affairs was located in the Golden Gate, and even people lived. Only in the middle of the XX century, the monument was restored and transferred to the museum.
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