Church of St. Nicholas Ratny (Kazan Kremlin)

The Church of St. Nicholas Ratny is a white-stone church from the second half of the 16th century in the southwestern part of the Kazan Kremlin, one of the oldest surviving monuments of Kazan. It is dedicated to St. Nicholas the Wonderworker; today it is no longer a working church and belongs to the Kazan Kremlin museum reserve.

History

According to some sources, the church was built around 1558. It was laid in two rows of large blocks of Volga limestone, with thick walls standing on piles. In form it was a two-storey, single-domed church of the Novgorod type, with a refectory and an apse.

The popular name "Nikola Ratny", Nicholas of the Army, came from its parishioners: most of them were streltsy, the musketeers of the Kazan garrison.

In 1815 a great fire in Kazan badly damaged the church and partly destroyed its dome. The same year it was rebuilt to a design by the provincial architect A. Schmidt: the vaults were taken down, the upper storey was rebuilt in brick and covered with a barrel vault. In 1820 a side chapel dedicated to St. John Climacus was added.

The dome was lost in the Soviet period. Restoration began in the 1990s under the architect G. Gayazov and saved the 16th-century white-stone lower floor and part of the original architectural details.

Architecture and setting

The church's west wall rests on the fighting gallery of the fortress wall between the South-West Tower and the Transfiguration Tower, so the building is effectively built into the Kremlin's defences. Two layers are visible: the white-stone lower part of the 16th century and the brick top of the early 19th century.

The church today

The building belongs to the Museum of Archaeology and is used as a store for archaeological finds. As one of the first stone buildings of Russian Kazan, it is regarded as an important part of the republic's historical heritage.

Getting there

The church is inside the Kazan Kremlin. Getting close to the building is difficult because it is fenced off. A good view of the church and the fortress wall opens from the viewing area by the Kul Sharif Mosque.