Church of the All-Merciful Savior in Volyshovo description and photos - Russia - North-West: Pskov region (Topic)

Church of the All-Merciful Savior in Volyshovo description and photos - Russia - North-West: Pskov Region. Detailed information about the attraction. Description, photos and a map showing the nearest significant objects.

Photo and description

The Church of the All-Merciful Savior is a unique monument of Russian classicism. This church is part of the ensemble of the Volyshovo estate, from which the following buildings have survived to our time: a hospital, a residential building, outbuildings and alleys of a beautiful old park. Unfortunately, this kind of monuments have not survived in the Pskov region. The Church of the Savior bears a great historical and artistic value.

The church was built in 1791 at the expense of Alexander Stepanovich Korsakov, who was the father of N. Korsakov, a lyceum comrade A.S. Pushkin. Alexander Stepanovich himself was from the village of Alexandrovo, where he lived.

The church building is located in the northeastern part of the manor complex. The architectural composition is based on the classic scheme of a square main volume, which is covered with a hemispherical dome with 4-column porticos at the northern, southern and western facades. As for the altar part, its solution was quite unusual in the form of a rectangular volume of the same height as the main volume of the structure, but a little wider, because the walls of the altar component tightly adjoin the columns of the porticoes of the northern and southern facades located at the edges, and not in the form curvilinear apse, traditional in plan.

The building of the Church of the All-Merciful Savior is brick. Most of the wall surface is decorated with large flat rustication, which is made in plaster. The upper part of the walls was treated with massive panels, only they are absent on the walls of the altar itself. Currently, the entrance to the building is from the southern facade. On the western side of the facade, a silicate extension of modern construction adjoins the main volume. A developed cornice of the main volume, which is decorated with a number of small and frequent denticles, complemented by a narrow architrave profile and a frieze band. In most parts of the main volume, the frieze is a moderately smooth ribbon, and in other cases it is decorated with triglyphs. Under the triglyphs, in the architrave, there are three small “droplets”, most of which have been lost. Three church porticoes are crowned with triangular pediments and in their properties are closest to the Doric order, but still do not completely satisfy its classical appearance. The capitals have a smooth wide abaca slab, which is supported by a rather narrow echina roller and two "straps" located below it. The tall slender neck of the capital is decorated with a ribbon with floral ornaments, which in most cases has been lost. The first shoulder of the capital is a narrow ridge with a fillet element under it.

The original column profile is highly distorted, which represents a large loss. The columnar trunk is made of bricks. The plinths and abacus of the capitals are made without columns using massive blocks of natural stone and fragments of capitals based on lime-cement plaster. The plane of the facades of the main volume is divided by pilasters, which corresponds to the position of the columns. All porticos presented have a common stylobate, which in the plan represents a significant part of the octahedron - these are three main faces that correspond to the porticoes and are complemented by intermediate faces.

Next to the doorway there is a boardwalk and a fairly modern vestibule. There are tall rectangular windows on all sides of the entrance. The complex framing of window openings includes a profiled frame of onion shape, the decorative fountain of which is supported by brackets decorated with grape and acanthus leaves. As for the dimensions of the window openings, then, in all likelihood, they were reduced in Soviet times.

Immediately after the revolution, the Church of the All-Merciful Savior was closed, which led to a rapid dilapidation and destruction of the temple. During 1961-1964, emergency work was carried out in the church building on the presented structure, as a result of which the portico pedestals were strengthened on the north side, the columns were straightened, complete cosmetic repairs were made and the decayed architrave was replaced.

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Topic: Church of the All-Merciful Savior in Volyshovo description and photos - Russia - North-West: Pskov region.