Pokrovskii Convent

a convent situated on the low-lying right bank of the Kamenka River. Legend associates the founding of Pokrovskii Convent with the name of Aleksander Nevsky. However, the convent was officially founded in 1364. Many members of the imperial family and the high aristocracy were confined there. Solomoniia Saburova, the wife of the Moscow grand Prince Vasilii III Ivanovich, lived at the convent from 1526 to 1542 under the name of Sister Sofiia. Anna Koltovskaia, the fourth wife of Ivan IV Vasil’evich, was confined there from 1576 to 1626, and Mariia Petrovna Buinosova-Rostovskaia, the wife of Tsar V. I. Shuiskii, lived there from 1610 to 1626. Between 1698 and 1718, Evdokiia Lopukhina, the first wife of Tsar Peter I and the mother of Tsarevich Aleksei Petrovich, resided in Pokrovskii Convent under the name of Sister Elena.

The buildings of Pokrovskii Convent, which belong to the 16th and 17th centuries, are among the best examples of the Vladimir-Suzdal’ school of architecture. The main buildings are set in a row in the middle of the court and are flanked by rows of cells. The principal structure, the Pokrovskii Cathedral, was built from 1510 to 1518. It has four piers and three domes and is surrounded by broad galleries with a high arcade. The tent-shaped belltower (16th and 17th centuries) dominates the wooden buildings beyond the river. North of the cathedral is the refectory and Zachat’evskaia Church (1551), the latter decorated with a belt of dentate rhombuses. The convent is enclosed by a stone fence (17th and 18th centuries) and the Sacred Gates, above which rises Blagoveshchenskaia Church (about 1518).