Church of St. John the Baptist in Tolchkov

The Church of St. John the Baptist was conceived and built as something special, "which has never happened before," therefore, from the moment of its foundation, it was accompanied by a large number of contributions and donations, striking with the richness of the interior decoration and the amount of precious utensils.

Yaroslavl's largest temple of the 17th century is still one of the most notable buildings in the city. The temple has two chapels, which end with closely spaced five-domes. Their height is equal to the height of the central temple, which makes the church look like a huge 15-domed temple with a 5-apse altar from the east.

The exterior of the temple impresses with a variety of decorative forms. All the basic decorative techniques of Russian architecture of the 17th century are used here, among which the main place is occupied by curly bricks. The variety of its shapes is huge – from modest profiles to whole shaped slabs.: these are a variety of beads, rosettes, rollers, pigtails, columns of different sizes and shapes, melons, cocoons, etc. This sophisticated red brick stone "carving" is perfectly combined with colored tiles.

The monumental painting of this monument is one of the best examples of Russian art of the 17th century. The temple was painted by the Yaroslavl artel of 16 artists from June 5, 1694 to July 6, 1995. The famous Yaroslavl znamenshchiki Dmitry Grigoriev Plekhanov and Fyodor Ignatiev led the artel. The paintings of the church of St. John the Baptist in Tolchkov have no equal in world art in terms of the number of subjects depicted (more than one and a half thousand).

The image of the church is placed on the reverse side of a 1,000-ruble bill, issued in 2001.

Currently, the temple is part of the Yaroslavl Museum-Reserve and is used as an object of museum display.