Novodevichy Convent

Novodevichy Convent is a women's Orthodox monastery in Moscow's Khamovniki district, by a bend of the Moskva River, a fifteen-minute walk from the Garden Ring. Its roughly 5.18-hectare grounds are enclosed by fortress walls with twelve towers stretching about 900 meters. Since 2004 the convent has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site as an example of Moscow Baroque.

History

Grand Prince Vasili III founded the convent in 1524 to commemorate the return of Smolensk from Lithuanian rule. Its main cathedral was dedicated to the Smolensk icon of the Mother of God, "Hodegetria," a copy of which has been kept here since the 16th century. The prince granted the convent 3,000 silver rubles, palace villages and land, along with charters exempting it from taxes. For a long time the convent guarded the southwestern approach to Moscow along the Smolensk road.

The convent reached its height in the 17th century under Tsarevna Sophia, when its Naryshkin Baroque appearance took shape. From the early 18th century it gradually lost its status as a court convent. In 1922 Soviet authorities closed it and turned it into a museum; in 1934 it became a branch of the State Historical Museum. Services in the Assumption Church stopped in 1928, and in 1929 the convent cemetery was partly cleared. The cathedral was returned to believers in 1945, and nuns returned to the convent in 1994. Since 2010 the grounds have been held by the Moscow diocese in perpetual free use. A major restoration finished in autumn 2024 for the convent's 500th anniversary; during the work, 16th-century paintings were uncovered under later layers in the Smolensk Cathedral.

The Architectural Ensemble

The oldest building is the Smolensk Cathedral (1524–1525), with 16th-century frescoes and a five-tier iconostasis. The ensemble also includes the Assumption Church with its refectory (1685–1687), the Intercession and Transfiguration gate churches, the Ambrose Church, the chambers of Tsarevna Sophia, and the Lopukhin and Maria chambers, once quarters of disgraced tsarinas. The six-tier bell tower, 72 meters tall and built in 1689–1690, is Moscow's second-tallest after the bell tower of Ivan the Great. In 2015 a fire broke out on the bell tower during restoration work, after which its dome and bells were replaced.

Novodevichy Cemetery

The convent's Novodevichy Cemetery covers more than 7.5 hectares and holds about 26,000 burials. Inside the old walled section lie Anton Chekhov, Nikolai Gogol (reburied here in 1931), Mikhail Bulgakov and Dmitri Shostakovich. The new cemetery beyond the south wall holds the graves of Boris Yeltsin, Vladimir Mayakovsky, Nikita Khrushchev (whose monument was made by Ernst Neizvestny), Zoya and Alexander Kosmodemyansky, Yuri Nikulin, Vyacheslav Tikhonov, Yuri Luzhkov and Yuri Levitan. Entry to the cemetery is free, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Legends

According to legend, composer Alexander Borodin wrote scenes of the opera "Prince Igor" while walking by the convent walls, and the nearby Bolshoy Novodevichy pond inspired Pyotr Tchaikovsky's scene from "Swan Lake." In the 17th and 18th centuries the convent served as a place of exile for noblewomen: forced monastic vows stripped them of their names and former status. The best-known case is the forced tonsure of Tsarevna Sophia after she lost power.

Getting There

The nearest metro station is Sportivnaya on the Sokolnicheskaya line, about a 10–15 minute walk from there to the entrance along 10-letiya Oktyabrya Street. Bus route s755 stops at "Novodevichy Convent." The museum exhibition is open daily from 9:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.; an adult ticket costs 500 rubles, a discounted one 300.