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Spaski Tserkov', The Church of the Savior at
Ubori, color photo.
There is no information on how Peter's uncle, Boyar Lev Kiriloovich
Narishkin, came to the idea of building the baroque churches around Moscow, nor
do we know who the architect was. The first church he erected was the Church of
the Intercession of the Virgin, built in 1691-93 at his estate at the village
of Fili (formerly called Pokrovskoye). The church is one of the finest of the
Narishkin style and, though Napoleon's army turned its basement into a stable
and the church itself into a workshop, it remained well preseved. Everything
appears delicate and light in this church; a combination of pale red bricks
background and carved white stone used in its window architraves, its many
white columns and particularly the wide cornices around each projection of the
main square and octagons, gave it an extraordinary airy and playful appearance.
The interior is also richly decorated, particularly the iconostasis, avery fine
piece of carved wood, which dates from the end of the 17th century. Legend has
it that Peter liked to sing in the choir in this church.
The architect followed most of the traditional features of Russian wooden
churches, adapting them to brick structures. He put the church on an elevated
basement and surrounded it with an open gallery (gulbishche) served by three
monumental stairways. The main quadrangle of the church has four semicircular
projections one on each side, which gave the church a cross-shaped form. The
projection on the east serves as the apse, the other on the west as narthex and
the remaining two as a sort of transept. Upon the rectangle the builder
superimposed three octagons in a series of rededingsteps. The first which
serves as the dome of the church, is the largest, the second serves as the
belfry and the highest and smallest as the frum, which carries an octabonal
cupola crowned with a cross. This type of tower-shaped church became known as
the church under the bells (pod kokoli). Each projection has an octagonal drum
on top of a cupola with a cross.
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