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Chapel of John the Baptist in Derevenki

Фото 1
A large rural chapel, executed in ornate forms with elements of "uzorochye" from the 17th century, is characteristic of the Russian style of the 19th-20th centuries. It is located on the edge of the forest.

The village of Derevenki, which disappeared by the early 20th century, was part of the estate of the boyars Shestov in the 16th century. From this family came the mother of the future Tsar Mikhail Fyodorovich Romanov, Ksenia Ivanovna, known in monasticism as Martha. According to legend, Ivan Susanin, famous for his feat during the Polish-Lithuanian intervention, was born in Derevenki, and his son-in-law Bogdan Sobinin lived here. For the 300th anniversary of the reign of the House of Romanov, it was planned to open an educational institution in Derevenki in memory of Susanin's feat. A project, similar to the complex in Domnino, was developed in 1887 by academician of architecture V.N. Semyonov, but it was not realized. In 1913, the Alexandrov Orthodox Brotherhood built the existing chapel with donations from parishioners. The walls of the building are made of brick with facing masonry on the facades.

The chapel has a cubic shape with a gentle four-pitched roof, on which a four-sided pedestal with an onion-shaped dome on a cylindrical drum is installed. The corners of the building are emphasized by pilasters, along which a low plinth, a window sill, a narrow frieze with rectangular recesses framing the semicircular window arches, and a narrow crowning cornice run. The plasticity of the facade is created by perspective strips decorating the pilasters and stepped console tongues. Arched windows on the side facades and a niche on the eastern wall are framed with casings with an archivolt resting on rectangular columns. On the western facade, where the roof is raised by a gable, there is a high flat arched niche corresponding to the windows, with a rusticated archivolt and columns. A rectangular entrance opening with cut-off upper corners and a round panel above it is inscribed in it. The walls of the sub-dome pedestal are decorated with cornices and narrow horizontal niches with a ledge. The drum with semicircular kokoshniks at the base is adorned with two niches in the shape of a three-part Italian window, and a band with vertical recesses is introduced into the cornice. The edges of the roof of the main volume and pedestal are emphasized by a narrow visor made of perforated iron. Inside, the chapel has a room with beveled corners, covered by an eight-part vault with narrow diagonal troughs, and small formwork is laid above the windows.

Geo point

Часовня Иоанна Предтечи в Деревеньках

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