[Photographs]

Case Study 1: Peter and Pavel Church on Silnishe (Novgorod)

The Peter and Pavel Church on Silnishe was build in the 12th century by residents of Lukinskaja Street - it was affiliated with the Petropavlovsky Convent. It was burnt out in 1386, during the Dmitriy Donskoy’s march. In 1611, during the Swedish invasion, the convent was wasted. In 1691 it was attached to the Resurrection Convent (Mjatchino) but it was soon discarded and left to its former position. In 1764, the Petropavlovsky Convent was abolished and the church was converted to the Sophia Side and attached again to the Resurrection Church of Mjatchino.

The Peter and Pavel Church on Silnishe is the only monument of Novgorod’s architecture with its authentic form in a good state of conservation. A noticeable feature of the church is the masonry of thin brick without stone rows. The brick rows placed in the plane of the façade are alternated with rows drowned into grout, the surface of which is floated -an influence of Polotsk-Smolensk building engineering.

In the years of the Great Patriotic War, 1941-1945, the church was severely damaged. In 1957, Novgorod’s research-restoration and production workshop undertook a conservation project for the monument: the drum and domes were mended, the roof was created, and breaches in the walls were filled in (under the direction of L.E. Krasnorechiev). In 1993, due to frequent unauthorised visitors inside the church, the window openings and the western portal were bricked.

At present the roof is completely damaged, and the sodden domes are in a ruinous state. All the façades at the upper parts of walls have large areas with destroyed masonry.

Case Study 2: Refectory Building with Joann Listvennik Columnar Church

The Refectory building with Joann Listvennik Columnar Church (mid-16th century) and an overbuilt belltower (18th-19th centuries) belong to the ensemble of the Joann-Theologian Kripetsky monastery in Pskov - a monument of the architectural and spiritual culture of Russia. Now the refectory building and the church are under threat. The monastery-hermitage was established in the middle of the 15th century by reverend Savva Kripetsky, an adherent of non-acquisitiveness - one of the most ascetic developments in Russian-Byzantine monasticism. Originally from Athos (or from Serbia?), he chose an islet among the wild Kripetsky swamps for his prayers. After his death in 1495, and the subsequent connection of Pskov to the united Old Russian State, adherents of a new State tradition built a new stone monastery ensemble, under the guidance of patriarch Makariy. Remaining from this structure today is the two-storied refectory building, made of local limestone-plate and bricks with the columnar church, which was overbuilt and converted into a belltower afterwards, and also with a stone belfry. The ensemble, which is a symbol of revival since the 1991 coenobium (the monastery was closed in 1923), is severely damaged. The famous Kripetsky church belltower threatens to collapse. The vault structures of the refectory building are swiftly tumbling into ruins. One of the most original conventual monuments of the world-famous Pskov's school of architecture threatens to collapse and perish.

ICOMOS Russia