Novodevichy Monastery and Novodevichy Cemetery

During the tour we will get acquainted with two iconic sights of Moscow: Novodevichy Monastery and Novodevichy Cemetery. This tour is completely dedicated to the monastery, which was erected by order of Vasily III in gratitude to the Almighty for the return of the Smolensk lands to Russia, and the cemetery at the monastery, from which the Soviet authorities made a kind of pantheon. There was another, more prosaic reason for the construction of the monastery: Vasily III had to send his first wife, Solomonia Saburov, somewhere, who for twenty years of marriage could not give birth to an heir. Otherwise Basil III would not have been able to marry again. His bride was Elena Glinskaya, the mother of Ivan the Terrible.
Since then, the walls of the Novodevichy Monastery have become a kind of prison for people of the royal family who were not pleasing at court.

During our tour we will remember that:

• in the Cathedral of the Smolensk Icon of the Virgin, Ivan the Terrible, Boris Godunov and Peter I prayed;

• The widow of Tsar Fedor Ioanovich Irina Godunov, the first wife of Peter I Evdokia and his sister Sophia were exiled to the Novodevichy monastery;

Boris Godunov, the brother of Queen Irina Godunova, lived in the monastery until his election to the kingdom;

Peter I executed at the walls of the monastery streltsy - like-minded Princess Sophia.

Special attention of tourists deserves Novodevichy cemetery. We will learn why the tombstone from Gogol’s grave was moved to Bulgakov’s grave, how a church cross pierced Denis Davydov’s head, get acquainted with the unique American duck family and live ducks on the banks of the magnificent lakes surrounding the monastery. Here are buried Princess Sophia, and the widow of Ivan the Terrible’s son, the most famous Soviet and Russian political figures: S. Alliluyeva, B. Yeltsin, E. Primakov and others. At the Novodevichy cemetery there are graves of L. Zykina, Yu. Nikulin, M. Ladynina, L. Orlova, G. Alexander, Y. Yakovlev, V. Tikhonov and many other famous actors. All tourists will be able to walk on their own on the territory of the Novodevichy Monastery and the Novodevichy Cemetery.

Guide work