According to foodanddrinkjournal.com, Sergiev Posad is located in the Moscow region, 71 km northeast of Moscow.

Around 1335 on the site of modern Sergiev Posad in the Radonezh forest, the monk Bartholomew founded the hermitage. He aspired to the strictest monasticism, which is why he built a small wooden church in the name of the Holy Trinity in an almost uninhabited place. Two years later, the monk took the vows as a monk under the name Sergius. The fame of the monk’s humility and diligence soon spread to other lands, and monks began to flock to the monastery. In 1345 the church became the Trinity-Sergius Monastery. Sergius of Radonezh was revered not only by ordinary peasants and landlords, but also by the Metropolitan of All Russia, as well as by the patriarchs of other states. In 1392 Sergius died, and in 1452 he was canonized as a saint. During the years of his life, the once needy hermitage turned into a flourishing monastery. Small villages formed around it – Kokuyevo, Panino and Klementyevo, whose inhabitants were engaged in woodcarving and making toys. In 1408, the Tatars captured and burned the monastery, but already in 1411 the monastery was restored. It became the largest religious center of Russia. In the possession of the Trinity-Sergius Monastery were numerous lands that had large state benefits. Gradually, trade began to develop here, and handicraft settlements began to form – Ikonnaya, Povarskaya, Konyushennaya, Telezhnaya, Pushkarskaya and Streletskaya. Construction in the monastery and its environs was carried out exclusively at the expense of the monastery. In 1742, a theological seminary was opened within its walls. In 1744, the monastery received the title of Lavra, and in 1782, by decree of Catherine II, together with the surrounding settlements, it was united into Sergiev Posad. In 1919, under Soviet rule, Sergiev Posad received the status of a city, and the Lavra was closed. Only in 1946 the Lavra was reopened and it became the largest male monastery of the Russian Orthodox Church. From 1930 to 1992 the city was called Zagorsk in honor of the revolutionary V.N. Lubotsky (Zagorsky). Nowadays Sergiev Posad is one of the main cities of the Golden Ring and one of the largest strongholds of Orthodoxy in Russia.

The main attraction of the city is undoubtedly the Trinity-Sergius Lavra. The monastery complex, which began to be built in 1335, today has about 40 buildings, it is the largest monastery in Russia. It was here that Russian soldiers led by Dmitry Donskoy were blessed before the Battle of Kulikovo, Ivan the Terrible was baptized here, and here Peter I took refuge during the Streltsy rebellion in Moscow. The architectural ensemble of the Trinity-Sergius Lavra is included in the UNESCO World Heritage List. Representatives of noble Russian houses and prominent ministers of the church are buried in the Lavra, as well as unique objects of decorative and applied art, offerings of tsars to the monastery, Russian chronicles, handwritten books of the 15th-17th centuries, samples of early printed books and historical documents are stored. The main monastery church and the oldest surviving building of the monastery is the Trinity Cathedral.. It was built in 1422 from white stone. From the moment of its foundation, the formation of a unique architectural ensemble of the monastery began. The interior walls of the cathedral are decorated with paintings that were created in 1635. These frescoes reproduce the ancient iconography of the original painting of the church, which Andrei Rublev and Daniil Cherny worked on. A five-tiered iconostasis by Andrei Rublev has been preserved here, where the famous icon of the Holy Trinity once stood. In the Trinity Cathedral, the holy relics of St. Sergius, the main shrine of the monastery, rest in a silver reliquary. The largest building of the Lavra and its only tent temple is the Assumption Cathedral. It was erected by order of Ivan the Terrible in 1559-1585. In architecture, it is similar to the Assumption Cathedral of the Moscow Kremlin, but it is large. The cathedral is interesting for the frescoes of the late 17th century and the Godunov family graves. Other buildings of the Trinity-Sergius Lavra are of no less interest – the Fortress and Kelar chambers (16-17 centuries), the gate church of John the Baptist (17 century), the Dukhov Church (late 15 century), the monastery refectory with the church of St. Sergius of Radonezh (late 17 century), fraternal cells, the Mikheevskaya Church (1734), the Smolensk Church (mid-18th century), the Metropolitan’s chambers and the 88-meter five-tiered Lavra bell tower (18th century) with an obelisk.

Not far from the Lavra there is a source named after Sergius of Radonezh with miraculous water, where, according to legend, Sergius of Radonezh ascended into the sky during prayers.

Southeast of the Trinity-Sergius Lavra there are two ancient churches – the Church of the Presentation of the Most Holy Theotokos in the Temple on Podol and the Church of Paraskeva Pyatnitsa on Podol. Both of them were erected in the middle of the 16th century. Of the religious buildings of the city, it is also worth looking at the churches – Ascension (late 18th century), Assumption (1769) and Ilyinskaya (1773).

Since 1920, the State Historical and Art Museum-Reserve has been operating in Sergiev Posad. It was created on the basis of the artistic and historical values found in the Trinity-Sergius Lavra and was located in the buildings of the monastery until 2001. Today, the museum’s collections include more than 120,000 exhibits. These are ancient icons, medieval manuscripts, early printed books, monuments of facial and ornamental sewing, church utensils, gold and silver items, paintings, drawings, folk and modern arts and crafts. The museum is one of the oldest collections of art treasures in Russia.

Sergiev Posad – the recognized capital of Russian toys, famous for its chiseled painted matryoshka. Sergius of Radonezh is considered the ancestor of carved toys (he blessed children with them). Sergiev masters, starting from the 17th century, made toys for Russian princes. By the end of the 19th century, they began to make caskets, painted and gilded household items, and furniture. Artistic processing of wood to this day glorifies Sergiev Posad, here in 1918 the Toy Museum was opened. Abramtsevo estate is locatedĀ 15 km from Sergiev Posad, where today the museum-reserve is located. The estate gained fame in the middle of the 19th century, when the writer S.T. Aksakov. Since then, this place has turned into a major literary and artistic center. N.V. Gogol, I.S. Turgenev, M.S. Shchepkin, the brothers Kireevsky and A.S. Khomyakov often visited the estate, here V.M. Vasnetsov painted paintings “Alyonushka” and “Three Bogatyrs”, I. E. Repin – “The Religious Procession in the Kursk Province”, “They Didn’t Wait”, “The Cossacks”, V. A. Serov – “The Girl with Peaches”, M. V. Nesterov – “The Appearance of the Child Bartholomew”. It was in Abramtsevo that a creative association of artists was created – “Abramtsevo Artistic Circle”. Khotkovo is located

11 km from Sergiev Posad., on the site of which the Intercession Monastery appeared in 1308. It is believed that the brother of St. Sergius of Radonezh, Stefan, took monastic vows in this monastery. Today, the Pokrovsky Monastery is an active women’s monastery. At the beginning of the 19th century, a new five-domed brick church was erected on the site of the old building, and at the beginning of the 20th century, St. Nicholas Church was erected here in the Russian-Byzantine style. In the ensemble of the monastery, the Holy Gates of the 18th century stand out, which face the Trinity-Sergius Lavra. Since the reign of Peter I, the Pokrovsky Monastery has been famous for its lace and gold embroidery craftswomen.

Not far from Khotkovo is the village of Radonezh. where Sergius of Radonezh spent his adolescence. The Church of the Transfiguration (1840) with a chapel of St. Sergius of Radonezh is of interest here. A monument to Sergius of Radonezh was erected next to the church in 1988.

Near Radonezh , the village of Vozdvizhinsky is interesting . In the past, Vozdvizhenskoye was the last stop of the royal pilgrimages to the Trinity-Sergius Lavra. Here, in 1848, the Exaltation of the Cross Church, a rare centric form for that time, was erected in the Moscow Empire style.

In the vicinity of Sergiev Posad, the unique Chernigov Skete is also interesting, where the miraculous icon of Our Lady of Chernigov and the underground temple, the desert of St. Paraclete are located with wooden monastic cells of the 19th-20th centuries and the Gremyachiy waterfall, 25 m high, which, according to legend, appeared from a rocky crevice through the prayer of Sergius of Radonezh.

Sergiev Posad, Moscow Region (Russia)

Sergiev Posad, Moscow Region (Russia)
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