Novodevichy Convent

Novodevichy Convent stands on the Moskva River in the Khamovniki District of Moscow, Russia, and is among the best-preserved monastic ensembles in the country. Vasily III founded it in 1524 to mark the recovery of Smolensk from Lithuania, and its 16th-century Smolensky Cathedral, modelled on the Dormition Cathedral in the Kremlin, is the oldest building on the site. Over the following centuries the convent was a home for noblewomen and members of the royal family: Sophia Alekseyevna, regent for Peter the Great, was confined here after the failed Streltsy uprising in 1689, and Peter's first wife Eudoxia Lopukhina was also sent to a convent nearby. The ensemble was largely rebuilt in the late 17th century in the ornate Moscow Baroque style, with pink-and-white walls, twelve towers, the Church of the Transfiguration over the gates, and a tall bell tower completed in 1690. Inside the walls the Smolensky Cathedral preserves an important iconostasis and 16th-century frescoes; the museum exhibits icons, embroidery, manuscripts and church plate. The convent was closed by the Soviet authorities in the 1920s and turned into a museum, then partially returned to the Russian Orthodox Church in 1994, and nuns are again in residence, so parts of the grounds are working church spaces and dress rules apply. Restoration work in the 1990s and 2000s has kept the walls, towers and pond view in good condition. Next to the convent lies the Novodevichy Cemetery, entered separately, where Anton Chekhov, Nikolai Gogol, Sergei Prokofiev, Nikita Khrushchev and Boris Yeltsin are buried. The visit is organised around the walled precinct rather than a strict chronology, with individual buildings each having their own exhibition. A visit usually takes about two hours including a walk around Novodevichy Pond, from which the classic view of the towers reflects in the water.