The city of Mogilev. The Holy - Mykol Monastery

The Mikolsky Monastery was founded in the 17th century on the Grivlyanskaya hundred near the Dnieper, according to the privilege of the King of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth Vladislav IV. First, in 1672, the brick church of St. Nicholas of the Mogilev school of early development in the Baroque style was built. At the same time, a gate with a belfry, a farm building, which has survived to our time, was built. During the Northern War, the monastery was looted by Russian and Swedish troops. At the end of the 18th century, the "warm" winter church of St. Anuphrius was built in the style of classicism. The Emperor of the Russian Empire, Nicholas II, visited the monastery more than once during the First World War, when the Supreme Commander-in-Chief's Stake was in Mogilev. The monastery was closed in the 1930s, and a transit prison operated here until 1941. In the post-war period, there was a warehouse. And then for some time the buildings were abandoned. In the 1970s and 1980s, well-known Belarusian archaeologists Oleg Trusov and Igor Cherniavskiy conducted excavations on the territory of the monastery. Ancient burials of the 17th and 18th centuries were discovered in brick cellars.

The architecture of the Mikolsky temple is unique and unrepeatable. The main facade resembles an iconostasis and is divided into tiers and niches painted with frescoes. The painting was originally done in the 17th century. These were images of plant decoration. And those bright pictures that you will see now were made already in recent years. The facade has two towers. The towers are multi-tiered. Unfortunately, one of the tiers was demolished during the restoration. In plan, the building has a Latin cross. There are three apses on the side of the altar. The interior of the Mikolsky temple was decorated with fresco paintings in the 17th century in the style of the Mogilev school of painting. New paintings were also applied in the 18th and 19th centuries. Some of the frescoes were lost during the Soviet era. And the new frescoes were made after the restoration of the monastery in 1989. The four-tiered iconostasis, made in the 17th century in the Belarusian rezi style by craftsmen from Mogilev region, impresses with its beauty. Part of the iconostasis was lost in the Soviet post-war period, but it was restored according to old photographs and drawings.

In the future, it will be possible to restore the Mikolsky Church to match the 17th century monument, and raise the issue of granting it an architectural monument of world importance.