Saviour Monastery of St Euthymius in Suzdal: Walls, Museums and History

In the northern part of Suzdal, on the steep bank of the Kamenka, stands the Saviour Monastery of St Euthymius, a monastery for men founded in 1352. Behind its high walls, with twelve towers, are the Transfiguration Cathedral (1594), with its exceptionally well-preserved frescoes (1689) by the renowned masters Gury Nikitin and Sila Savin; the bell tower with three arched openings (16th–17th centuries); the Annunciation Gate Church (16th–17th centuries); the house of the archimandrite—the head of the monastery—with the tent-roofed Church of the Dormition (1525); St Nicholas Church with its hospital wing (1669); and, finally, the long, two-storey building containing the monks’ cells (17th and 19th centuries). All the buildings have been restored and made available for museum exhibitions.

The five halls of the archimandrite’s house host the major exhibition “Book Treasures of Six Centuries” (15th–20th centuries). On display is the “Apostol” of 1564 (the Acts of the Apostles and the Epistles), published in Moscow by the printer Ivan Fyodorov, which marked the beginning of Russian printing. Other exhibits include the Slavic “Grammar” (1648), by Meletius Smotrytsky, the finest textbook of the Russian language until the mid-18th century, and the first illustrated Russian primer (1694), compiled by Karion Istomin and decorated with engravings by Leonty Bunin. A unique highlight of the exhibition is a handwritten Gospel (17th century) with a magnificent silver cover—the largest book in Russia. The cover was made by Afanasy Trukhmensky, a master of the Moscow Armoury. The hospital wing houses the “Golden Treasury” exhibition, with more than 500 works of decorative art from the 13th to the 20th centuries. These include remarkable works by Old Russian jewellers, precious embroideries and repoussé silverware. The exhibits give a good overview of the key milestones in the history of Russian applied art. The galleries of the monks’ quarters house a museum of folk art from across the Russian Federation. The beautiful embroideries, delicate lace, playful toys and small handcrafted objects made from birch bark and glass displayed here are not only imaginative in their execution but also testify to a high level of professional craftsmanship.

All the bells have been brought together in the bell tower, and several times a day visitors have the chance to hear their enchanting chimes. Near the eastern wall of the monastery’s main church lies the tomb of Prince Dmitry Pozharsky, a national hero in the Russian people’s struggle for freedom against the Polish intervention of the early 17th century.

The monastery’s history also has its darker side. It was used as a prison for religious and political freethinkers from 1764 until the beginning of the
20th century. In 1829, one of the prisoners was the Decembrist Fyodor Petrovich Shakhovskoy, who had been transferred here from exile in Siberia and died in Suzdal following a hunger strike.