Another almost universal superstition is in Moscow attached to the Sukharev Bashnia, which is supposed to be the feminine complement of the Ivan Veliki tower in the Kremlin. The people call the Sukharev the jena (wife) of Ivan, and, according to tradition, Jack and Jenny get nearer to each other every year.
Visitors for whom folk-lore has no attraction will look for the picturesque in Moscow. The most characteristic view, the prospect the tourist expects, is that seen by turning westward along the boulevard from the Lubianka, and keeping along the south footpath, near the wall, watch the old town appear little by little as the brow of the hill is reached. Houses—of all sorts and colours—a façade like that of a classic temple, domes blue, green and golden, the red tower of a Chastok, a medley of roofs and walls, all these will appear framed in the foliage of the trees on the boulevards, and those overhanging the walls of the Rojdestvenka Convent, until the valley of the Neglinnaia is right below and the crosses and domes of the Petrovski Monastery are disclosed to view. Then it is time to cross the road to the centre of the boulevard and see Moscow unfold itself—walls and towers changing like the coloured fragments in a kaleidoscope. Opposite, where the bank rises to the Strastnoi Monastery, was once the old village of Vissotski—older, it is said, than Moscow town, or Kremlin, or even the hall of Kuchkovo and the twelfth century hamlet on the Chisty Prud at the back.
Again, ascend the belfry of St Nikita in the Goncharevskaya; time—the very early morning, and see the rising sun glitter on the domes of the Kremlin, and the churches of the Bielo Gorod; or, when it has long passed the meridian, watch the afterglow reflected from the thousand domes, tinting the white walls from the balcony of Krinkin’s on the Hill of Salutation. Stay on and watch the great white town, silent, reposeful and glorious, fade into the haze of the “white-night”; see it shimmering in the moonlight, or the glare of midday sun; sparkling feebly in the blue star light, or glowing like a new-cast ingot in the blackness of winter’s midnight; see it how, when and where you may, solve the enigma of its vitality if you can—but neither doubt its strength, nor question its beauty.
Исполинскою рукою
Ты, какъ хартія развитъ;
И надъ малою рѣкою
Сталъ великъ и знаменитъ!
CHAPTER XII
The Convents and Monasteries
“These are the haunts of meditation,—these
The scenes where ancient bards th’ inspiring breath
Esctatic felt; and from the world retired,
Conversed with angels and immortal forms,
On gracious errands bent.”—Thomson.
RUSSIAN monks all belong to one order, that based on the rule of St Basil the Great, practically the only order of “black” clergy recognised by the Eastern Church. The first monastery in Russia was founded by St Anthony, a Russian who, after living some time on Mount Athos, returned to Kiev, and there, in 1055, conjunctly with St Theodosius, established the Pecherski Monastery, on the same rule as that of the Studemi—one of the strictest of the clerical institutions in Constantinople. The Pecherski still ranks highest among the monasteries of Russia. The one of greatest importance in Moscow, though not the most ancient, is that of the Miracles (Chudov) founded in the fourteenth century by St Alexis, the Metropolitan. It stands within the Kremlin, between the two Imperial palaces, on a spot which long ago was a part of the enclosure around the dwelling of the Tartar bashkak, or “resident.” At the time when one Chani-Bek was khan, his wife, Taidula, fell ill and was healed by Alexis, to whom out of gratitude she presented her gold signet ring with its effigy of the Great Dragon, and a site for the Monastery of the Miracles. The first building was erected in 1365, and the monastery long served as the residence of the primates of Moscow; it has been many times destroyed and rebuilt; the present building dates from the reign of the first Romanof, and, at the time of writing, is in course of extensive alteration. Passing before the Church, with the curious paper ikon outside, a large gateway will be found in the angle where the Chudov buildings abut against those of the smaller Imperial palace; passing through this, the visitor will find himself in a large Courtyard; the Church of St Michael is on the right, a small railed-in cemetery among the trees on the left. The Monastery, a mean, dilapidated, straggling two-storeyed building, extends almost completely around the quadrangle; the chief rooms, on the bel-étage, communicate with a long outside covered gallery, closely resembling the yard of an old London inn, which is reached by the perron in the western corner. The Church of St Michael, the Archistratigus, was built conjointly with the Monastery in 1365, rebuilt in 1504, and later restored in its primitive style, so has preserved even more than any other church in Moscow the original character of Muscovite ecclesiastic architecture. The interior is well worth seeing, but access is not easy; the best time is after early matins, which are celebrated about thrice weekly at 7 A.M.
The frescoes are very primitive, and for Moscow, original. The old-fashioned low ikonostas is of a type common to “wooden Russia”; the ancient ikons call only for the attention of the student, but on the High Altar is a tabernacle in the form of a church with twelve domes which has wider interest. It is the work of Remizov in the reign of Mikhail Theodorovich. Within the courtyard, traces of Tartar graves have been found; and the cemetery contains the tombs of Edeger—the last “Tsar” of Kazan, 1565—and of many Moscow families, as the Trubetskis, Kovanskis, Sherbatovs, etc. The state rooms are still used by the head of the Church in Moscow; they look out towards Ivan Veliki, immediately above the little window at which the Holy Bread is sold. Although the monastery has been the scene of many important events in connection with the history of the Church and of Moscow—it was here that Maxim, the Greek, studied, and Latin was first taught, 1506—there is nothing either in the refectory or common rooms connected with them, for the monastery was erected during the plague riots of 1771 and spoiled by the French. The church of the Patriarch Alexis is entered from the Tsar’s Square through a portico, of a pseudo-Gothic style, designed by Kasakov in the eighteenth century, but the church itself was constructed in 1686, and the remains of St Alexis the Metropolitan then conveyed there in the presence of the Tsarevna Sophia and the boy-Tsars Ivan V. and Peter I. It occupies the site of an earlier church founded in 1483, and contains the incorruptible remains of the Saint. Alexis, the wonder-worker, was descended from a boyard family named Pleskov. Born in 1292, he passed twenty-two years of his life in Moscow, a student of the Bogo-yavlenski Monastery; after admission he was for twelve years one of the household of the Archbishop, and later became bishop of Vladimir, and Metropolitan of Kief.
His care of the two child princes of Moscow, his direction of Dmitri Donskoi and sturdy championship of Moscow, and his efforts to maintain its supremacy, endeared him to the people. When he died in 1378, at the age of eighty-five, he was buried within the Chudov monastery he had founded; there in 1439 his remains were discovered undecayed, and miraculous qualities attributed to them. In 1519, Balaam the Metropolitan informed Vasili Ivanovich, then the reigning Grand-Duke, that the blind in visiting the tomb of Alexis were restored to sight. Since that date the memory of Alexis has been held in highest reverence by the orthodox, and in the public esteem he ranks with St Peter, first among the Patron Saints of Moscow. Consequently the church is one of the richest; it was spoiled by the French, who cast the silver shrine of the saint into the melting pot, and his moshi were found under a heap of lumber after the flight of Napoleon. Much of the decoration is new, but in the style of the time of Alexis Mikhailovich, of which the pavement is particularly characteristic. The new shrine is of silver, so are the royal doors of the sanctuary; for them some 420 lbs were needed, and the tabernacle, the chandeliers and the elaborate ikonostas are all of sterling metal, and there is a magnificent archiepiscopal mitre presented by Prince Potemkin. The original coffin of the saint, is preserved in a glass case near the silver shrine, and by it are kept the identical pastoral staff he used in Moscow, and other personal relics. Among these are manuscript copies of the New Testament executed by the saint, as also his holograph will. The library has some hundreds of old illuminated and other manuscript books, including a psalter of the thirteenth century, and a collection of old printed books of the seventeenth century. This church, the adjoining chapel of the Annunciation, and the monastery are all closely associated with the introduction of pedagogy to Moscow; it was here that the first scholastic seminary for priests was founded, and later an academy was developed. It became customary for parents to bring their children hither before their entry to any school, in order that the blessing of St Alexis might be asked, and some peasants of the village at one time owned by the saint make a pilgrimage to his shrine on his name day, and pray for their “Lord.” The sacristy has a valuable collection of old plate; the crosses, panagies, mitres, vases, goblets, etc., are remarkable for their beauty and rich decoration, and second only to those of the collection in the sacristy of the Patriarchs.