Smolensk Ascension Women's Monastery.

Smolensk Ascension Women's Monastery.

Smolensk is one of the oldest cities in Russia, and is traditionally believed to be located on seven hills. Legends and real events are associated with all of them, but the Ascension Hill is unique even for Smolensk. The Ascension Cathedral of the functioning convent and the “House of the Commune” standing nearby make it such – an example of the architectural style of late Soviet constructivism built in 1934.

In general, the history and condition of these two buildings is an illustration of the history of both Smolensk and Russia. About the "House of the Commune" - a separate story, but for now about the monastery.

So, before the baptism of Russia on the Ascension Hill, according to legend, Perunovo temple was located. It is not surprising that one of the first Smolensk Christian churches - Vasilievskaya - was built on this hill. Actually, until the 16th century, the hill was called Vasilievsky, and was renamed after the entry of Smolensk into the Moscow state, when by order of Vasily the Third Church was rebuilt and became known as Voznesenskaya. The “Time of Troubles” in Russia led to the fact that in the 17th century Smolensk belonged to Poland for more than 40 years, and the monastery of the Jesuit Order appeared on the site of the Orthodox Church. The same fate awaited a number of other Smolensk churches, and most of them the Poles simply destroyed. After the liberation, the monastery was re-consecrated, the elders of the Orsha Kuteinsky monastery were transferred to it, and it was here in the 60s of the 17th century that Colonel's daughter Natalia Naryshkina, who later became the mother of Peter the Great, was brought up. Here at her request, Tsar Peter, who already paid much attention to Smolensk, ordered the first Smolensk Governor Peter Saltykov to build a new stone building of the cathedral instead of a wooden one. On the construction next to the peasants from the Yaroslavl province worked Smolensk streltsy, begging the sin of participation in the famous "shooter riot" and pardoned by the tsar. And after all, not just built - the bell tower was installed outlandish for those times clock, because, according to legend, the plan of the cathedral and the bell tower Tsar Peter drew himself! And for more than a hundred years the cathedral stood in peace and splendor, but this time ended with the invasion of Napoleon. The French, as in other Smolensk monasteries, dispersed the nuns, and arranged a stable in the cathedral. A hundred years later, the Soviet government liquidated the monastery, transferring all the premises of the printing house. The carved iconostasis disappeared, the clock from the bell tower for some reason also disappeared, but after the war (the cathedral was miraculously almost not damaged, but the surrounding buildings were destroyed) in the building of the cathedral opened a museum of a native of the Smolensk region sculptor S.T. Konenkov, during his lifetime called “Russian Rodin”. About these times reminds standing still opposite the cathedral bust of the sculptor, and the museum moved to a pretty mansion.

... The nuns returned to the Ascension Monastery in the early 21st century. Does this mean that Smolensk is waiting for a hundred years of quiet life? I'd like to believe...