Orthodox Tours

Day 12.

Tuesday, June 22, 2010.

Meals: Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner.

Upon arrival to the Northern Russian capital - the glorious city of St. Petersburg we will explore a number of churches, tracing the architectural and iconogrpahic development of the Russian Sacred Art and Architecture in 18th the and 19th centuries. We will start our exploration with a visit to a bran new church, dedicated to the victims of a 900 days siege of Leningrad by German forces. This building, that looks very much like it much older and venerable predecessors, still relates very special feeling of a distinct architectural style of the Northern Russian capital. From there we will proceed to the historical Vasilievskiy Island for a visit to two oldest surviving churches of St. Petersburg, one dedicated to the Apostle Andrew and another one to three Holy hierarchs – St. John Chrysostom, St. Basil the Great and St. Gregory the Theologian.

After that, we will cross the river and will come to St. Nicholas Cathedral, the most illustrious example of the Baroque style in Russian Church Architecture. Just before Lunch, we will visit the largest church of St. Petersburg - St. Isaac’s Cathedral, a museum now. If you’d like, you’ll be given a chance to climb up some several hundred stairs to see St. Petersburg from the observation deck that surrounds mighty cupola of the Cathedral. After Lunch, we will stop to see Alexander Nevsky Lavra, monastic foundation of Peter the Great that he established to “sanctify” the newly initiated Northern Russian Capital. Later in the afternoon we will transfer to the Ancient City of Novgorod.

Day 13.

Wednesday, June 23, 2010.

Meals: Breakfast and Lunch.

Novgorod for centuries was the rival center to all of the Russian capitals and cultural centers. The magnificent remnant of this splendid glory can be seen till the present day. We will start our exploration of the city with several surviving churches on the former site of Novgorod’s market place, after that we will see the Grand Icon museum, perhaps with the most icons on display anywhere in Russia. After a visit to St. Sophia’s Cathedral, also in Novgorod Kremlin, you’ll be given a choice to visit Novgorod Treasure Gallery at Granovitaya Palata or to go back to study the treasures of Novgorod Icon Museum some more. In the afternoon we will see Transfiguration Cathedral with some Theophane the Greek frescoes, Znamenskiy Sobor, with some good 17th century frescoes, the Church of St. Theodore the Stratylates, also with frescoes from the 14th century and the Church of St. Simeon the God-receiver in the former Zverin Monastery.

Day 14.

Thursday, June 24, 2010.

Meals: Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner.

Today we will start our day with a visit to the restorers’ workshop. People from that workshop literally saved dozens of square feet of frescoes from the churches in and around Novogorod that were ruined during WWII and that were considered to be lost forever. We will see some restored churches, among them Church of Our Savior on Nereditsa, Church of the Nativity on the Red Field (Rozhdestva na Krasnom pole), the Annunciation Church (Blagovescheniya na Myachine). Besides that we will see St. Anthony of Rome Monastery, St. George’s Monastery with its famous 11th century cathedral and the Museum of Wooden Architecture “Vitoslavlitsi”. Following that we will transfer to another ancient Russian city of Pskov, in medieval times the western-most outpost of the Russian Lands.

Day 15.

Friday, June 25, 2010.

Meals: Breakfast and Lunch.

After transferring to the ancient Russian city of Pskov, we will start with a visit to the Holy Trinity Cathedral with its fascinating 17-18th century iconostas, historical museum with its excellent icon collection, and special chambers where many more icons that are never seen on general display are stored. Then we’ll continue to explore the treasures of Pskov – among them two splendid jewels – Snetogorskiy and Mirozhskiy monasteries with 13th and 14th century frescoes. Mirozhskiy Monastery also hosts the monastic icon workshop and a church with another white stone frescoed iconostasis completed by contemporary iconographer Fr. Zenon. After that we will visit the most ancient church in Pskov – the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist (12th century) where another famous Russian iconographer – Fr. Andrei Davidov tried to recreate icons and frescoes in a style that would be contemporary to the cathedral’s founding age.