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The mother of Peter the Great came
from a prominent boyar family named Narishkin. Hardly anybody today would pay
attention to this detail, and yet the Narishkin name remains very well known in
Russia, because they first, introduced, a peculiar style of their own, which
took their name and became known as "Narishkin Baroque." There is no
information on how Peter's uncle, Boyar Lev Kiriloovich Narishkin, put 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 1691-1693 at his estate at the village of
Fili
(formerly Pokrovskoe). 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 preserved. In building the
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 stairway. The main quadrangle of the church has four semi
circular projections, one on each side, which gave the church a cross-shaped
form: The one 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 receding steps. 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 drum, which carries an octagonal
cupola crowned with a cross. This type of tower-shaped church became known as
the church under the bells (pod kolokoli). Each projection has an octagonal
drum on top and a cupola with a cross.
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, a very fine piece of carved wood which dates from the end of the
17th century. Legend says that Peter the Great liked the church and was often
seen there singing in the choir. The church was closed after the revolution and
has been neglected for many years.
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