SLEEPING CATHEDRAL
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If there is only one cathedral to visit, this is it. Of all the monuments of the Orthodox faith in Russia, the Dormition Cathedral is the most majestic, the most beautiful, and also the most inviting to meditation. This church has always been an important sanctuary where princes were crowned and metropolitans were buried, but it was Ivan the Great who undertook to make it a symbol of the power of the nascent Moscow nation by calling on the Italian architect Fioravanti to transform the building. The latter worked on what became the masterpiece of his career. He used the rules of the Italian Renaissance, playing with space and light, which he combined with the Slavic style, which played with colours, wood carvings and shapes. The result is awe-inspiring: the interior of the cathedral, decorated with gold, commands respect, and the shimmering reds and blues that paint it make it seem larger. Today you can also see the throne of Ivan the Terrible, a relic of the past with wood decorated with scenes of everyday life of his time (1550).
The iconostasis of the cathedral dates from 1652 and its famous icon of Our Lady of Vladimir is to the left of the central entrance (a 15th-century copy of the 12th-century Byzantine original is in the Tretyakov Gallery). All in all, take at least an hour to soak up the almost mystical atmosphere of a plunge into the heart of the Russian Orthodox faith and the power of the Tsars.
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Not to be missed!!
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Émouvante! Sauf que pendant ces temps-là, la vie des gens ordinaires n'étaient pas rose.