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The Church of Saint John the Precursor in
the suburb of Tolchkovo is the most distinctive of all Yaroslavl churches. Its
construction continued for quite some time, from 1671 to 1687, and though the
name of the architect is unknown, documents confirm that many citizens sped its
completion with money or labor. The unusual feature of the church is that the
central quadrangle is surrounded on three sides by spacious galleries. The
fourth, eastern side, has three apses and a chapel with a single apse, one on
each side. The main church and the chapels each have five cupolas, making a
total of fifteen cupolas and five apses, an unusually decorative and very
symmetric composition. Another unusual detail is the diamond rustication of the
walls of the apses, very seldom seen in Russian architecture. All other
exterior walls are embellished with a very rich ornamental brick network that
rivals the finest carved wood patterns, and with predominantly blue tiles that
may be seen even on the drums that carry the cupolas. The art of decorating the
surfaces of the walls by shaping ordinary carved bricks into very rich and
complicated patterns reached its perfection in the Church of Saint John the
Precursor. Most of the Yaroslavl churches of the 17th century were not only
bigger than those of the same period in the tsar's Moscow, but also better
decorated and more impressive.
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