RU-92052

I really like churches and russian churches are always so beautiful, aren't they?
This is the St. Nicholas Church in Khamovniki.

RU-92052, sent by Alyona.

"Church of Saint Nicholas in Khamovniki is a late 17th century parish church of a former weavers sloboda in Khamovniki District of Moscow. The church is a federal listed memorial building. It marks the corner of present-day Komsomolsky Prospect and Leo Tolstoy Street, two blocks beyond the Garden Ring. The church yard occupies a whole block between Leo Tolstoy and Timur Frunze streets and includes a row of small old houses.

First records of a presumably wooden church on this site are dated 1625. The main five-domed church was built in 1679-1682; belltower and refectory were completed around 1694. Present day church sources claim that the belltower in Khamovniki is one of the highest tent-style belltowers in Moscow region.

The church is an example of late Muscovite Baroque that preceded short-lived Naryshkin Baroque of 1690s. It belongs to a numerous class of bonfire temples – church buildings without three internal load-bearing columns, crowned with layers of small circular kokoshnik-type gables. Each gable is a symbol of a heavenly fire (biblical thrones - angels or seraphs); a tightly packed group of gables is an architectural metaphore for the Throne of God." - in: wikipedia