Headless Arbat. Church of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker in Plotniki (not preserved) Church of St. Nicholas in Plotniki
Church. Lost.
Thrones: Life-Giving Trinity, Nicholas the Wonderworker, Balykinskaya Icon of the Mother of God
Architectural style: Baroque
Built: Between 1692 and 1700.
Year of loss: 1930
Architect: 1903: Betelev L.P. (bell tower)
Address: Address: Moscow, st. Arbat,
Coordinates: 55.74825, 37.588099
For the first time the church is mentioned in the documents of 1625. It was built by the inhabitants of a small settlement of "sovereign carpenters". Her history is like this. After the Time of Troubles and the burning, Moscow began to rebuild; the need for carpenters grew - even the new sovereign, the first Romanov, had nowhere to really settle in the Kremlin. A vast settlement of palace carpenters appeared on the Arbat, and they built the wooden church of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker, which gradually received the nickname Plotnitskaya (in Plotniki).
In 1670-1677 the church was rebuilt into a single-domed stone church. The stone Nikola with the main Trinity throne was built in accordance with the charter of Patriarch Joachim and was listed as “in the Carpenter's settlement”, which testifies in favor of the version about the carpenters who lived here at the peak of the heyday of the Arbat palace settlements. The three-tiered bell tower is dated 1771. Over the years of its existence, thrones, refectories and chapels were repeatedly attached to the church (the chapel of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker was built in 1692, the chapel of the Balykinskaya Mother of God - in the middle of the 19th century). In the XVIII century, near the Church of St. Nicholas in Plotniki, the property of the boyar Vasily Ivanovich Streshnev (1707-1782) was located - a statesman, chamberlain, senator, one of the relatives of Evdokia Streshneva, the second wife of Tsar Mikhail Fedorovich; immediately after the wedding, the seedy family of the Streshnevs fell into favor. See photo of St. Nicholas Church in Plotniki, 1882.
This temple remembered little A. S. Pushkin. At the beginning of 1807, the family of the future poet lived in Krivoarbatsky Lane, in the parish of the Church of St. Nicholas in Plotniki, and little Pushkin was his parishioner, which remained in the records of confession books.
Among the parishioners of Nikola in Plotniki was the family of the Slavophil philosopher A. S. Khomyakov (1804-1860), although Father Pavel Benevolensky from the Church of St. where the Khomyakovs used to live at 23 Arbat; nevertheless, the rest of his family, when changing their address, preferred to go closer to Nikola in Plotniki, and even became friends with her priest: having learned that the priest’s wife was ill with consumption, the Khomyakovs gave her a well-fed cow so that she would always have fresh milk. In the same church, the son of the Khomyakovs, Nikolai, was baptized, whose godfather was Gogol.
During the years of the revolution, the rector of the Church of St. Nicholas in Plotniki was Archpriest Vladimir Vorobyov, grandfather of the modern priest Vladimir Vorobyov, the current rector of the St. Tikhon Theological Institute. Soon he was arrested. While he was under arrest, Hieromonk Varlaam (in 1937 he was shot at the Butovo training ground; canonized as a saint, commemorated February 20) served in the Nikolsko-Plotnikov Church. However, in March 1925, Vladimir Vorobyov was released from prison. Since 1927, M. N. Nesterov, who became his parishioner, lived near Nikola in Plotniki; the artist presented the Crucifixion of his work to the temple. For some time, the well-known mechanic N. N. Buchholz was a parishioner and even an altar boy of the temple. In 1929 the temple was closed, and in 1932 it was demolished. Archpriest Vladimir Vorobyov died in prison in 1940.
In 1935, a residential building was erected on the site of the temple.
Nicholas, saint, in Plotniki church (destroyed).
In Plotnikov Lane, named after the palace settlement of carpenters located here, on the corner with Arbat Street stood the parish church of St. Nicholas. According to it, the lane until 1922 was called Nikolsky. Nearby is another lane - Krivoarbatsky, which goes from the Arbat and abruptly, almost 90 degrees, changes its direction. Previously, it was called both simply Krivy and Krivonikolsky, also after the church of St. Nicholas in Plotniki, which was not far away.
Buildings in the Arbat area have been formed since ancient times. In the 16th century, the courtyards located here were taken by Tsar Ivan IV the Terrible to the oprichnina, and, perhaps, the location of some state-owned settlements here dates back to this time. In the area of the modern Bolshoy Afanasevsky Lane there is a settlement of icon painters, near Sivtsev Vrazhka there is a palace tsarina settlement, on the south side of the Arbat, in the area of Krivoarbatsky Lane there is a settlement of government carpenters. Moscow historian M.I. Aleksandrovich put forward another explanation for the appearance of a carpenters' settlement on the Arbat. According to his searches, the settlement of carpenters was created by Tsar Mikhail Fedorovich, who, restoring Moscow after the Time of Troubles, gathered carpenters from different places and settled them in the Arbat area. The wooden church built by them has been known since 1625. It burned down many times, and later it was replaced by a stone one, built in two steps. On May 6, 1692, an antimension was issued to the throne of St. Nicholas (the refectory also dates back to this time). On May 3, 1700, an antimension was issued for the main church of the Holy Trinity. The refectory of 1692 was dismantled in 1852. In 1852–1856. at the expense of Anna Alexandrovna Nebolsina, a new refectory was erected with chapels of St. Nicholas and the Balykinskaya Icon of the Mother of God - an image donated by Varvara Semenovna Zhdanova and located in the temple since 1823. The original bell tower was replaced with a new three-tiered one in 1853. The church was renovated in 1897.
The main volume of the temple was distinguished by external clarity and relative simplicity. The smooth surface of the wall contrasted with the complex cornice, which was distinguished by great plasticity of forms. The corners were processed with columns in the form of the so-called "pipe". Large windows had luxurious platbands of the "Moscow style". The intricately profiled and loosened pediments of the architraves, with their upper part, the baluster, cut into the cornice and interrupt the rhythmic run of its pattern. The pediments rested on thin columns with melons. The cornice consisted of three “ribbons” of different designs: the bottom row was a deepened curb, the middle row was a kind of pentagonal niches with concave upper sides, in the center of each such niche was a protruding rectangular stone; the third "ribbon" of the cornice is a multistage horizontal rod with a complex profile. The cornice covered the entire temple along the perimeter, as if hanging over the plane of the wall. A two-tiered octagonal drum carried a small elegant onion dome.
The high tetrahedral three-tier classical bell tower was the vertical dominant of this small ensemble. The tiers of the ringing had semi-circular spans, each tier was separated from the other by a loosened cornice, the extensions of which corresponded to the semi-columns framing the corners. The lower tier had paired half-columns of the Tuscan order, the middle - Ionic, the third upper tier had one half-column of the Corinthian order on each side. Thus, the lower and middle tiers had four semi-columns at each corner, which visually enhanced the power of the abutments. As the tiers rise, the corner parts become lighter and the spans widen. The bell tower acquired transparency, lightness and harmony. On each side of the lower tier there were small pediments, under them - "triglyph-metopic" friezes. Each pair of semi-columns was located on a common wide pedestal, divided horizontally into two parts - a wider lower and narrower upper. The pedestal continued the wall and had an extension under the semi-columns. On the wide part of the pedestal between the middle and upper tiers, under each Corinthian semi-column, there were rectangular panels. Also, each pair of semi-columns corresponded to the unfastening of the entablature and cornice. The bell tower had an elongated closed dome, which, probably after renovation in 1897, acquired a more sloping outline. There was a narrow drum on it, which carried an elegant onion dome with a cross. A clear and balanced vertical and horizontal division of all parts of the bell tower created a clear, calm architectural image.
In the refectory, as well as in the main church, they tried to match the surface of the wall and the whimsical curvilinear and plastic solution of details: architraves, cornices. The large windows had architraves of complex curvilinear outlines, with braces, resting on thin columns. The cornice no longer has such a variety of forms, it was a clearly profiled horizontal rod, also covering the entire building along the perimeter. The corners of the refectory are shaped like pilasters without capitals. In general, all forms of the refectory were more dry. At the end of the 19th century, both the refectory and the main temple were covered with four slopes. It is known that this church is depicted in the painting by V.D. Polenov "Moscow courtyard" in the background.
The temple was destroyed in 1932. In its place, in 1935, it was built by the architect L.M. Polyakov, a six-story residential building (Arbat, house No. 43), in which the Diet store was located in Soviet times, and now the Mu-Mu cafe. A monument to B.Sh. Okudzhava (2001).
Mikhail Vostryshev. Moscow Orthodox. All churches and chapels.
Arbat is one of those Moscow streets that are especially unlucky. In the early 1930s he lost all his churches. Everything, to one ... But there were a lot of them on the street. The disappearance of the Arbat temples changed both the architectural appearance of the street and the style of its life, not to mention the spiritual component. It was an irreparable loss.
Mikhail Germashev. Arbat street (1912-1913). Departed nature - the gate bell tower of the Church of St. Nicholas the Manifested, demolished in 1931, and the Empire-style mansion of Obolensky-Trubetskoy, destroyed by a German bomb in 1941, are clearly visible.
Once the Arbat was called St. Nicholas Street - there were three churches dedicated to St. Nicholas - St. Nicholas the Manifested, St. Nicholas in Plotniki, St. Nicholas on the Sands ... Old Arbat residents considered this saint to be the patron of their small homeland. The emigrant writer Boris Zaitsev, a former Arbat resident, also spoke about this, representing St. Nicholas in the form of a gray-bearded old cabman driving along the Arbat, and Andrei Bely wrote about this: ?"
Boris Zaitsev at the beginning of the 20th century lived on the Arbat in the house number 38, which was owned by the merchant A.F. Chulkov. Initially, the house was small, two-story, then Chulkov expanded his possessions by building a large brick house of "simple architecture" (as Lev Kolodny defined it) along Spasopeskovsky Lane and connecting it with Arbat house No. 38, completed up to 4 floors. The facades of the two combined buildings were distinguished by an uncomplicated uniformity - undecorated red brickwork. Over time, the old brick darkened, giving the house an increasingly gloomy look. The brick façade survived until the reconstruction of the Arbat in the 1980s, when the house was painted in pink tones, which completely transformed it. 
The house where Boris Zaitsev lived
Boris Zaitsev, a Russian writer, lived for more than 50 years in Paris and at a venerable age died in Paris, on Frémicourt Street, a little short of ninety-one years old ... But all his long life he yearned for the Arbat and constantly returned to him - in his works , in memories, in thoughts and conversations with relatives and friends. Abroad, he continued to be a famous Russian writer, but his works returned to their homeland only at the turn of the 1980s and 1990s, too late, when his contemporaries were almost gone, and his name almost did not say anything to his descendants. . Few have rediscovered this writer.
"The image of the departed youth, the life of a noisy and free, affectionate hustle, love, hopes, successes and melancholy, fun and aspiration - this is you, Arbat," - this is how the essay "Street of St. Nicholas" begins , published in the West after Zaitsev left for emigration,one of the most poignant and important creations of the writer. Arbat remembered Zaitsev as a young student, then as a young bohemian-looking writer.
Andrei Bely, a friend and neighbor on the Arbat, recalled: “Boris Konstantinovich Zaitsev was both gentle and kind: in his first stories I saw a gift; student Borya, who let himself go of a Chekhov beard, at the end of the course put on a wide-brimmed hat, wrinkled his eyebrows and with a hooked with a stick in his hand he walked along the Arbat; and everyone began to ask:
- Who?
- Boris Zaitsev, writer..."
In fame, Zaitsev could argue with such "fiction writers" as Bunin or Kuprin ... Muscovites loved their "beginning genius".
Boris Zaitsev
“Petersburg is not my city,” Zaitsev wrote to friends in 1913, “I love Mother Moscow, I am always faithful to her, faithful to my Arbat.” Boris Zaitsev kept this loyalty forever.
Boris Zaitsev and his Arbat friend Konstanin Balmont in Parisian emigration will mortally yearn for Moscow. While walking around a foreign capital, they will look for places that are at least somewhat similar to their beloved Arbat. Balmont will begin to assure Zaitsev that the Rue de Passy is the Parisian Arbat.“In essence, this Passy is like a cemetery for us,” Zaitsev gloomily remarks in the essay “Return from Vespers.”
If he managed to talk to people who had come from Soviet Russia, Zaitsev began to eagerly ask them about Moscow, about the Arbat. “In his mind, Boris Konstantinovich walked along the Arbat, recalled house after house from Prague to the end of the street. At the same time, he asked if this or that building had been demolished and what was in it now. He was especially grieved that churches had been blown up and destroyed.” (Evgenia Deich. "From the memories of Boris Zaitsev").
No wonder he wrote in exile: "Remembering your Moscow life, you see that it began and ended near the Arbat. (...) I see him now, after many years, with an indifferent gaze."
Church of St. Nicholas the Manifested, 1881
Saint Nicholas is one of the most revered saints in Rus'. Nicholas Day was celebrated twice a year - in May and December. These holidays were called Nikola summer and Nikola winter; on the Arbat they were held with special solemnity. Believers often went to the image of Saint Nicholas for help - it was believed that he could help anyone who was in trouble.
Nicholas Ugodnik
The wooden building of the church was erected here in ancient times, when Arbat was just beginning to be inhabited.
Archers of the times of Ivan the Terrible
Since the time of Ivan the Terrible, there has been the center of the streltsy settlement here - the parish church of the streltsy, the temple of St. Nicholas the Manifested, and the original headquarters of the regiment - moving out the hut, where the regimental treasury and banners were stored, the streltsy authorities met and royal letters were announced.
In 1593 the building was replaced with stone. Visited Moscow at the end of X VI V. Bishop Arseny Elassonsky mentioned that Boris Godunov erected a stone church of St. Nicholas on the Arbat.Godunov developed stone construction in every possible way; The Nikolskaya Church, erected at his command, was one of the most significant Moscow buildings of that period.
The main church buildings stood in the depths of the site, however, from the Arbat one could clearly see the white majestic church towering over low-rise buildings.
The gate bell tower that adorned the Arbat (it was located between the unpreserved house No. 14 and house No. 16) was built later in 1639, at a time when Moscow was recovering from the effects of the Troubles. And it turned out to be one of the best images of hipped church buildings of the 17th century.
Empress Elizabeth
This church was especially revered by Empress Elizaveta Petrovna. Arriving in Moscow, she always visited this temple and made rich donations to its treasury. According to legend, the holy fool who lived near the church prophesied the royal crown to Peter's daughter at a time when nothing foreshadowed such changes in her fate. Having achieved the imperial crown, the Empress, in gratitude, donated the miraculous image of the Akhtyrskaya Mother of God to the church. In 1761, Guards captain Durnovo equipped a special chapel at his own expense, where a precious icon was placed.
One of the lists of the icon of the Akhtyrskaya Mother of God
During the reign of Catherine II the church of St. Nicholas the Manifest was a place of public repentance for criminals who committed the most cruel and wild crimes. M.I. Pylyaev in his book "Old Moscow" describes a similar case: "Of such examples, another one was known in 1766, when along the Moscow streets, with a huge confluence of people, a detachment of soldiers with loaded guns, with a priest with a cross, saw off a barefoot, chained man and woman in shrouds, with loose hair that fell over their eyes; these were the Zhukovs, the murderers of their mother and sister.
They stopped in front of the doors of the Assumption Cathedral, in front of the churches of St. Peter and Paul in Basmannaya, Praskeva Pyatnitsa on Pyatnitskaya, near Nikola Yavlenny on the Arbat ... There they read the manifesto. The criminals, on their knees, had to read a prayer composed for this occasion and repeatedly repeat repentance before the people.
Pylyaev also cites the testimony of Professor P.I. Strakhov, who died in 1813, about the fact that in X VIII V. the church of St. Nicholas the Appeared was surrounded by a high fence with turrets, which is why the church buildings looked like a fortified monastery.
Church of St. Nicholas the Appeared from the courtyard
This church is mentioned by Leo Tolstoy in the novel "War and Peace" when describing the events of 1812 in Moscow. Knowing that Napoleon would enter Moscow along the Arbat (here was the end of the Smolensk road leading from the west, along which the French were advancing), Pierre Bezukhov decided to arrange an assassination attempt on the French emperor there. "Pierre's path lay through the lanes to Povarskaya and from there to the Arbat, to Nikola Yavlenny, in whose imagination he had long ago determined the place where his work should be done." Lingering on Povarskaya, Pierre saves a child from the fire, then comes into a fight with marauding soldiers who robbed a family of Moscow Armenians, and instead of the Arbat church, he ends up on Zubovsky Val (now a boulevard), where the French set up a guardhouse for the arrested ...
Scene of the Moscow fire of 1812 from the movie "War and Peace"
When a terrible fire raged on the Arbat in 1812, which practically destroyed the street, the brick buildings of the church were burned, but survived. They were restored, refinished and decorated. The parishioners of St. Nicholas the Manifest did not skimp on donations. On a watercolor by V.N. Nechaev "View of the Arbat" (1830s) from the exposition of the memorial museum-apartment of A.S. Pushkin, the temple of St. Nicholas the Appeared in the foreground is presented in all its splendor.
V.N. Nechaev. View of the Arbat
In 1830 - 1840 St. Nicholas Church was one of the most "fashionable" in Moscow. M.E. wrote about this. Saltykov-Shchedrin in "Poshekhonskaya antiquity", a book based on the writer's own childhood experiences. "Nikola the Appeared had an archpriest who became famous for his sermons. They said that he competed in this respect with Metropolitan Filaret, that the latter envied him ..."
Here, according to Saltykov-Shchedrin, young ladies who arrived with their parents from provincial estates in Moscow for the "fair of brides" were brought "to the bride" to the bridegrooms. During the church service, potential suitors looked after a suitable girl, then sent a matchmaker to her house to arrange a personal visit of the applicant. Having praised the groom, his income and fortune, the matchmaker asked the bride's parents for invitations for the groom ("They are very eager to take Nadezhda Vasilievna for themselves. In the church, at St. Nicholas the Manifest, they saw them. They liked them so much!"). If a candidate was considered suitable, he was invited to pay a visit and get to know each other better. The bride anxiously prepared for this meeting (“The sister thought about her dress in advance. She will be dressed simply, as if no one had warned her about anything, and shealways at home like this. A pink tartalan dress with a high bodice, intercepted at the waist with a crimson ribbon - that's all. A string of pearls is woven into her hair, a brooch with diamonds on her chest; the ribbon is stabbed with a buckle, also with diamonds. The main thing is to keep it simple..)
Parents, servants and all the household were also fussing before the visit of the groom ("By seven o'clock they cleaned the hall and the living room, wiped the dust off the furniture, lit sconces with wax candles on the walls; in the living room they put a girandole on the table in front of the sofa ... In conclusion, they opened it in the hall piano, they put notes on the music stand and lit candles on both sides, as if they were playing now. Mother had already managed to make inquiries about the groom with her Moscow relatives. The long-awaited guest is engaged in a conversation that revolves more and more near the Arbat church, so as not to look for common topics for a long time.
The guest is seated on the sofa next to the hostess.
“It seems that we are somewhat familiar from Nicholas the Appeared,” mother kindly begins the conversation.
- I live near this church, so, to be honest, I go there for Mass on holidays.
- And what kind of sermons does the archpriest say! Ah, what a sermon!
- How can I tell you, madam ... I do not like them ... "Watch" and "remember" - and without him everyone knows! And sometimes he talks freely!
View from the house in Serebryany Lane to the Church of St. Nicholas the Yavlenny and the Arbat (early 20th century)
The Church of St. Nicholas the Appeared was considered one of the most beautiful in Moscow. The architecture of the church buildings, and especially the bell tower overlooking the building line of the Arbat, delighted many. In 1913, the architectural historian Ivan Pavlovich Mashkov, compiling an architectural guide "Around Moscow" for the congress of architects, mentioned the Church of St. Nicholas the Appeared among the main Moscow sights. He draws attention to the "luxurious forms ... of the gate tent bell towers" of Moscow churches and points out that "the most outstanding of them belongs to the Church of St. Nicholas the Appeared on the Arbat ..." The bell tower with "amazing, sculptural dress" Mashkov calls "the height of grace and taste." It must be said that by no means every one of the Moscow architectural structures was awarded such a detailed description. The guide was addressed to architects who are able to independently evaluate all the originality of buildings. Mashkov often limited himself to only mentioning objects worthy of the attention of a specialist. And if he began to describe something in detail, then it was a masterpiece of masterpieces and truly "the height of elegance and taste."
The Temple of St. Nicholas the Appeared was known for its extensive charity work. Until 1917, the Brotherhood of St. Nicholas existed at the church, which took care of the poorest students of theological seminaries and diocesan schools, and also took care of the orphaned children of clergy. In honor of the 300th anniversary of the Romanov dynasty, the Brotherhood founded a charitable Religious and Educational Center with a school and a free library. In order to raise funds for charity, the clergy had to conduct economic activities on behalf of the church.
The Church of St. Nicholas the Appeared was one of the richest in Moscow. She owned several buildings on the Arbat, surrounding church buildings - residential buildings and shops, which gave a good profit. For example, the building of Karpov's flower shop, which has been trading here since 1909. The "Flowers" store remained in this place until the 90s, when a cafeteria was opened in the building rebuilt along the facade. Later, several cafes and eateries changed there.
The church also owned both buildings on opposite corners of Arbat and Serebryany Lane. The nondescript two-story house (No. 16) in the photograph of 1881 appears as a one-story mansion after the fire, which retains the details of the Empire design. It housed a church almshouse. After alterations and add-ons of the beginning of the 20th century, which turned it into a two-story shop (the second floor was residential), the house clearly began to generate income, and the bogomaker was transferred to a more convenient building at the back of the alley. The neighboring house, which also belonged to the church, was also profitable (No. 18, built in 1909, now completely rebuilt).
Long before the houses surrounding the church became her property, on the site next to the church there was, as already mentioned, a hut of a streltsy regiment moving out. After the abolition of the Streltsy army by Peter, the spacious stone building of the "hut" turned into a residential estate. Having changed several owners, the thoroughly rebuilt "hut"-estate turned out to be the property of the landrichter (judge) F. Manukov, grandfather of the famous commander A.V. Suvorov. By the name of a prominent homeowner, Serebryany lane was even called at one time Manukov. The judge's daughter married an officer of the Preobrazhensky Regiment, Lieutenant V.I. Suvorov, having received an Arbat estate as a dowry for the wedding.
Many researchers suggest that it was here that the great generalissimo was born. Later, the Suvorov family moved to another mansion nearby, on Nikitskaya. But the Arbat remained their favorite and native place. In different years, the children and grandchildren of the commander lived on the Arbat and in the nearby lanes.
Unfortunately, after 1917 the fate of St. Nicholas the Manifest was as sad as that of other Arbat churches. In 1922, in the "case of resistance to the seizure of church valuables in Moscow," among the well-known priests, the rector of the church, Archpriest Vasily Sokolov, was arrested. The church was closed and the warehouses of the Book Chamber were set up in it.
In 1931, the temple of St. Nicholas the Appeared was destroyed. Arbat became a government highway. The bell towers, claiming to be "elegance and taste", should not have caught the eye of the country's leadership. As part of the demolished buildings there was a quadrangle of the Godunov Church X VI V. In the depths of the church plot, a typical school was built, facing Silver Lane. Classes began in 1937. Later it turned out that the school was not needed at all in this quarter, it was disbanded, and the building was alternately occupied by various offices.
This is how the corner of the Arbat and Serebryany lane began to look after the demolition of the church. Only the former almshouse (house 16) and a flower shop (from the right edge of the picture) were left. Photo from the 1970s
In the early 1990s, the press raised the issue of restoring the Church of St. Nicholas the Appeared, or at least its bell tower in its original place, on partially preserved old foundations discovered during restoration work on the Arbat. But this idea has not yet been implemented ...
The building of the former church flower shop; behind the fence - the former garden of the Suvorovs' estate.
Almost simultaneously with St. Nicholas the Manifest, another Arbat church of St. Nicholas died - St. Nicholas the Wonderworker in Plotniki (Arbat, house number 45, at the corner of Plotnikov Lane). 
Church of St. Nicholas in Plotniki
To be continued.
Demolished by Soviet authorities in 1932
First mentioned in documents of 1625. It was built by the inhabitants of a small settlement of "sovereign carpenters".
In 1670-1677 the church was rebuilt into a single-domed stone church. “The stone Nikola with the main Trinity throne was built according to the charter of Patriarch Joachim and was listed “in the Carpenter's settlement”, which testifies in favor of the version about the carpenters who lived here at the peak of the heyday of the palace settlements.” The three-tiered bell tower is dated 1771. Over the years of its existence, thrones, refectories and chapels were repeatedly attached to the church (the chapel of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker was built in 1692, the Holy Trinity - in 1700, the chapel of the Balykinskaya Mother of God - in the middle of the 19th century).
In the XVIII century, near the Church of St. Nicholas in Plotniki, the property of the boyar Vasily Ivanovich Streshnev (1707-1782) was located - a statesman, chamberlain, senator, one of the relatives of Evdokia Streshneva, the second wife of Tsar Mikhail Fedorovich; immediately after the wedding, the seedy family of the Streshnevs fell into favor.
At the beginning of 1807, the Pushkin family settled in Krivoarbatsky Lane, just in the parish of the Church of St. Nicholas in Plotniki, and little Sasha was his parishioner, which remained in the records of confession books. A little later, among the parishioners of St. Nicholas in Plotniki was the family of the Slavophil philosopher Alexei Khomyakov (1804-1860), although Father Pavel Benevolensky from the Church of St. Nicholas the Appeared on the corner and Serebryany Lane, which stood nearby, on the other side, where the Khomyakovs had previously lived, remained the confessor of Alexei Khomyakov himself. address, house 23; nevertheless, the rest of his family, when changing their address, preferred to go closer to Nikola in Plotniki, and even became friends with her priest: “Having learned that the priest’s wife was ill with consumption, the Khomyakovs gave her a well-fed cow so that she would always have fresh milk.” In the same church, the son of the Khomyakovs, Nikolai, was baptized, whose godfather was Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol.
At the beginning of the 20th century, the Church of St. Nicholas in Plotniki on the Arbat was a small and poor parish: the entire parish of the Church of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker in Plotniki consisted of 30 houses, populated mainly by merchants and intellectuals. There, in this parish, Archpriest and public figure Iosif Ivanovich Fudel (1865-1918), who had previously served as a priest in the Butyrka prison, was assigned, moreover, on his own initiative; he was a religious writer and publicist, prepared for publication the collected works of the outstanding Russian thinker Konstantin Leontiev. Father Joseph did a lot to help his parishioners, collecting donations for the poor of his parish and helping others, including taking part in helping the starving people of the Volga region. In 1908, Joseph began a completely new business for parish life in Russia - the publication of his own efforts and means of the journal "Prikhodsky Vestnik" - the journal was published in 1908-1912 and 1914-1915, sent to apartments to all parishioners of the church and reflected different aspects of the life of the parish . He responded warmly. Joseph Fudel to help the wounded in the First World War - September 8, 1914, an infirmary was opened at the Church of St. Nicholas in Plotniki. During the two years of the war, 222 people were treated in the infirmary at the church. After the October Revolution, the son of Iosif Ivanovich Fudel, Sergei Iosifovich, also a religious publicist, was repeatedly arrested, and his son Nikolai Sergeevich Fudel became the author of several historical novels, working under the pseudonym Plotnikov (in honor of Plotnikov Lane, where he spent his childhood in his grandfather’s apartment), was in charge of the philological department at MISiS
After the October Revolution, the rector of the church was Archpriest Vladimir Vorobyov. Soon the priest was arrested. While he was under arrest, St. Varlaam (Nikolsky) served in the Nikolsko-Plotnikov Church (he was shot in 1937 at the Butovo training ground). However, in March 1925, Vladimir Vorobyov was released from prison.
Since 1927, the Russian painter M.V. Nesterov, who became his parishioner, lived near Nikola in Plotniki; the artist donated the Crucifixion of his work to the temple
For some time, the well-known mechanic N. N. Buchholz was a parishioner and even an altar boy of the church.
In 1929 the temple was closed, and then in 1932 it was demolished. Archpriest Vladimir Vorobyov died in prison in 1940.
Nicholas the Wonderworker in Plotniki . Built in 1670. In the letter given for the construction of the church from Patriarch Joachim, it is written: "In the Carpenter's settlement, beyond the Smolensk gates." At present, only the real church in the name of the Holy Trinity has remained intact from the former building; the refectory was rebuilt again in 1853.
Since this temple was completely plundered in 1812, its interior iconostasis and images belong to the middle of this century. It should be noted that the church has been here since the beginning of the 16th century, but it was made of wood, and the country house of the boyar Vasily Ivanovich Streshnev was right next to it. The chapel of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker was built in 1688. There is also a chapel - Balykinskaya Mother of God.
Regarding the name of the church "in Plotniki" there are two assumptions. The first is that carpenters lived here in royal establishments, between Nikitskaya and Arbatskaya streets, and the second: that Novgorod residents of the Plotnitsky end, or settlement, were settled here under Grand Duke John III. The latter name is more reliable, as it is confirmed by some historical data. The church is located on the Arbat.
John the Baptist, in Staraya Konyushennaya . Near the Arbat, in Starokonyushenny Lane, which got its name from the Konyushenny sentry settlement located here. The church was originally built at the beginning of the 17th century, then in 1653 it was rebuilt and renovated at the beginning of this century. Aisles: Holy Five Martyrs: Eustratius, Auxentius, Eugene, Mardarius and Orestes and the Mother of God [icon] "Joy of All Who Sorrow".
(The temple was also called: St. Nicholas Church; St. Nicholas Church; St. Nicholas Church; St. Nicholas Church; St. Nicholas Church of Myra; St. Nicholas Church; St. Nicholas Church)
For an enlarged image, click on the photo.
In 1917, her address: Moscow, st. Arbat, 45; Nikolsky per., 24. The Church of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker, in Plotniki, stood at the corner of Arbat Street and Plotnikov Lane.
Known since 1625. And although the main altar was Trinity, the church was always named after the Nikolsky chapel. Another chapel of the Balykinskaya Mother of God.
According to one version, the wooden parish church of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker was built in 1625 specifically for palace carpenters. Their settlement appeared on the Arbat after a troubled time, when carpenters were needed after a fire that destroyed most of Moscow. It is believed that these carpenters first paved the Arbat at the expense of the Zemsky Prikaz as a state territory: copper kopeks from the time of Alexei Mikhailovich, the very ones that led to the Copper Riot of 1662, were found in the wooden pavements.
Near the Church of St. Nicholas in Plotniki is the property of the boyar Vasily Ivanovich Streshnev, a relative of the second wife of Tsar Mikhail Fedorovich.
In 1670-1677, according to the letter of Patriarch Joachim, a stone church with the main Trinity throne appeared in place of the wooden one. The temple was listed "in the Carpenter's settlement".
In 1812 the temple was completely plundered. In the first half of the 19th century, the iconostasis and decoration of the temple were updated. The refectory and the bell tower were added in 1853. Romanyuk S.K. in the book “From the history of Moscow lanes” writes: “Back in the late 1880s. the Arbat alleys witnessed idyllic village scenes. “Many kept cows in their yards,” a contemporary recalled.
I remember one early spring morning. Only four hours; I wake up and hear a strange sound. What's happened? It turns out that a shepherd is walking along Plotnikov Lane and playing the horn. The cows come out of the gate, and the shepherd drives them to graze on the Maiden's Field. Among the parishioners of the temple, A. S. Pushkin should be mentioned. At the beginning of 1807, the family of A.S. Pushkina lived in Krivoarbatsky Lane, in the parish of the Church of St. Nicholas in Plotniki, and little Pushkin was his parishioner, which remained in the records of confession books.
In 1907, the well-known priest Joseph Fudel was appointed to the Church of St. Nicholas in Plotniki, who took the rank with the blessing of the elder Ambrose of Optina. Priest Pavel Florensky, Konstantin Leontiev, Lev Tikhomirov were friends with him.
The church was destroyed in the early 1930s.
In its place, in 1933-1935, house No. 45/24 along the Arbat was built (architect Leonid Mikhailovich Polyakov, 1906-1965).
Illustration source:
Naydenov N.A. Moscow. Cathedrals, monasteries and churches. Part III, Dep. 1: Part of Zemlyanoy Gorod on the left side of the Moskva River. M., 1882, No. 10
