Church of the Life-Giving Trinity (Tankeyevka)

The Church of the Life-Giving Trinity is an abandoned brick church in the village of Tankeyevka, Spassky District, Republic of Tatarstan, near the border with Ulyanovsk Oblast and about 20 km from Bolgar. Built in 1859 to a design by Konstantin Thon and rising more than thirty metres, it still dominates the village and is one of the largest abandoned churches in Tatarstan.

History

An Orthodox parish was founded in Tankeyevka in 1756. From the mid-18th century the village belonged to the Bludov noble family: Yakov Romanovich Bludov received the land as a dowry when he married Fekla, daughter of the landowner Savva Novikov.

The present masonry church was built in 1859 at the expense of Count Dmitry Nikolayevich Bludov. It was designed by Konstantin Thon, the architect of the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in Moscow. The main altar was dedicated to the Life-Giving Trinity, with side chapels of the Kazan Icon of the Mother of God and of St Nicholas the Wonderworker. Two more chapels, of St Demetrius of Thessalonica and St Alexandra of Rome, were added later. In 1897 a bell tower designed by Fyodor Nikolayevich Malinovsky was attached to the church.

In Soviet times the church was closed and gradually fell into ruin.

What to see

The church is built of brick in an eclectic manner with Russian-Byzantine features typical of Thon's work. At over thirty metres high, it is the largest church complex in the Spassky District, and the late-19th-century bell tower makes its silhouette visible from far away.

Legends

According to local accounts, when the authorities tried to close the church in the late 1920s, the whole village came out to defend it. Villagers still regard it as their shrine and as a symbol of the whole district.

Getting there

Tankeyevka is about 20 km from Bolgar, near the border between Tatarstan and Ulyanovsk Oblast. The church is clearly visible from the highway. The building itself is abandoned; services in the village are held on church feast days in a prayer house dedicated to the Life-Giving Trinity, consecrated on 20 May 2003.