Church of the Assumption on the Volotov Field

The district of the village of Volotova, near Veliky Novgorod, was inhabited for a long time, and gentle pagan mounds were found here more than once. Tradition says that in one of them the legendary Gostomysl was buried, who invited Rurik to the reign with his squad. There is a version, according to which the name "Volotov" is associated with the name of the legendary Old Slavic heroes - Volotov. Therefore, the place chosen for the construction of the temple is not accidental.

In 1352, here, in the very center of the village, located on the shore of the Small Volkhovets, on the initiative of the Novgorod Archbishop Moses, a stone church of the Assumption of the Most Holy Theotokos was erected. The Assumption Church in Volotovo is traditional for Novgorod architecture of that time. It is a small, one-headed, four-pillar temple with a three-bladed post-comb completion of the facades. Like all ancient Novgorod temples, it was not plastered outside. This was done specifically to demonstrate the variety of masonry, combining both stone blocks and traditional bricks. The walls were painted only 11 years later, in 1363.

About 200 compositions adorned the walls of the temple until 1941, and in the first months of the war the monument was destroyed. The walls were preserved to a height of only one to one and a half meters. The restoration of the temple and the return of the frescoes to the original place has been ongoing for several decades. There is still a memorial line on the walls that shows the extent of the destruction of the war. This line was deliberately left by the restorers, so that descendants could appreciate the scale of the disaster. For the restoration of the Assumption Church, architects L.E. Krasnorechev and N.N. Kuzmina were awarded the title of laureates of the State Prize of the Russian Federation.