Explore Moscow!: Art Noveau Church In Freezing Moscow

January is dragging to the end, inevitably, but extremely slowly, and to make things worse, it’s been bitterly cold. Moscow is frozen, moving reluctantly, and walking anywhere feels more uncomfortable than anything else. It’s a time to wrap yourself up in warm fluffy scarves, cook mulled wine and ginger Pu-erh.

With a winter spell on me, I feel like the rest of the city, numb in the cold, and writing is slow and painful. I’ve been long flirting with the idea to start a cycle of stories on Moscow art noveau; in fact, I have started translating a major article about art noveau in Moscow that I wrote for Code de Vino Magazine last autumn. But so far the struggle has been unequal, and the article is not yet ready.

But as I was feeling compelled to write of at least something, a brilliant attraction right beside my office came to my rescue. It’s in two minutes’ walk, and it’s absolutely adorable.

So meet the Old Believers' Church of Intercession of Theotokos.

Well, not that I can always really remember names of Russian churches, especially given that the names in Russian sound complex and solemn, and have hidden meanings that affect translation. This particular name (Церковь Покрова Пресвятой Богородицы, Tserkov Pokrova Presvyatoy Bogoroditsy) is very widespread in Russia; it can also be rendered as the Church of the Veil of Our Lady, since Pokrov in its original meaning is actually a veil that in the Orthodox tradition the Virgin spread over the craving people. I personally prefer to remember location, not names. The Church address is Maly Gavrikov Lane 29, and it’s close to Baumanskaya metro station.

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This cleared up, there is another fact that is worth a special comment. The church used to belong to an Old Believers’ community, Old Believers being a branch of the official orthodox religion. For centuries their belief was outlawed, and at the same time a lot of prosperous merchants and talented people practiced it in total secret. When the Old Believers were eventually inlawed in 1905, a cultural explosion followed, and we can now admire masterpieces created by or for them.

First decade of the 19^th century was a time when art noveau blossomed. In Russia, art noveau is called modern, and there are a lot of the style varieties. In our case this is the so-called “northern modern”, a term recognised only in Russia, its next-of-kin being the National Romantic style typical to the Scandinavian countries.

As you can see on the photos, northern modern features shapes and patterns one can see in northern architecture and nature. Shapes are bulky, colours are subdued, and only coloured maiolica is used in abundance to cover the onion domes. Textures contrast each other, forms vary, and the whole building appears as a fairy-tale cloud hovering above the frozen cement underneath, hidden among blocks of flats.

And here’s the architect, Ilya Bondarenko.

He was a pioneer of northern modern and an eminent Russian architect. He is the author or co-author of more than 50 buildings of varied scale and application. After the Revolution of 1917, he focused his efforts mainly on museum management and preservation and restoration activities.

The church I’m describing was laid down in 1909. It was the first church in Moscow to be built of reinforced concrete, with abundant decoration and precious icons inside. The domes are covered with maiolica slates, and somehow they resemble snake’s scales, a telltale art noveau symbol.