The ensemble of the Church of Nikita the Martyr, the Church of Peter and Paul

The most important among the architectural monuments of Porechye-Rybnoye is the bell tower of the church of Nikita the Martyr of 1799-1810, a monument of federal significance – one of the tallest rural bell towers in Russia, 82 m high. Local temples - the summer cathedral of Peter and Paul in 1768, the winter temple of Nikita the Martyr in 1772-1779 - are the most significant in the Rostov land in terms of their size, monumentality, and richness of interior decoration after the Rostov Cathedral of the Assumption Cathedral. Rich peasants, through their enlightened landowner, Count V.G. Orlov, attracted the best, famous architects of their time, for example, Giovanni and Domenico Gelardi, to design the elements of the temple complex.

in 1767-1768, on the site of the wooden church, the Peter and Paul summer Temple rose, built in the old Russian tradition – a five-domed building on a quadrangle, a refectory and a tent bell tower. The church had a cast-iron floor, and an ornate iconostasis by Ivan Danilov was installed in front of the altar.

A wall painting has been preserved in the interior of the church of Peter and Paul. It has come down to our days with considerable losses – the plaster from the vaults has almost completely crumbled, a colorful layer has been washed away in the upper and lower parts of the walls to the levkas. The preservation of the iconographic system can still be called quite complete, and some fragments of the painting allow us to judge the style and artistic manner of the masters who performed it.

The wall painting is made on a two-layer soil, the top layer of which is a very thin, white and dense lime plaster. The outlines of the figures are indicated by clear and detailed graph lines. The painting is executed with water colors. All these features are inherent in the painting of the altar, the nave and the porch of the Peter and Paul Church, from which it follows that all the rooms of the temple were painted at the same time, in 1782-1785.

Source: Morozov A.G. State Museum-Reserve "Rostov Kremlin". Yaroslavl State University named after P.G. Demidov. Yaroslavl Regional branch of the All-Russian Society for the Protection of Historical and Cultural Monuments. The river is Fishy. Travel Guide; Rostov, 2018.