St. John Chrysostom Church (Temple complex in Korovnitskaya Sloboda)

The most remarkable element of the decoration of the Zlatoust temple is the amazing beauty of the architrave on the window of the central altar apse, made of multicolored glazed ceramics.

It is known that it was made forty years after the construction of the church. The architrave has impressive dimensions – 8 by 5 meters and is considered by all art historians to be an unsurpassed masterpiece. There is no such miracle anywhere else in Russia!

Currently, the church is used for Old Believer worship services, and at the same time restoration work is underway in it. It is not easy to get inside the temple, especially for ordinary tourists.

The Zlatoust Temple was built in the former Doilovaya Sloboda, which later became known as the Cowsheds. The money allocated by the wealthy Yaroslavians Fyodor and Ivan Nezhdanovsky was used for this. It took 5 years to build, and in 1654 the new church was consecrated. Later, both benefactors and their family members were buried in its southern aisle.

A little over a quarter of a century has passed since the construction, and a new generation of Yaroslavl architects has embarked on a radical redesign of the church. To make the temple better lit, high window openings were cut through its main volume and decorated with ornate architraves. At the corners of the building, the builders made elegant bundles of half-columns with colored tiled inserts. The Podzacomar coating was replaced with a more practical flat four-pitched roof. And to further emphasize the elegant lines of the temple, decorative porches were added to it, also decorated with ornaments of colored tiles and white stone carved weights on the entrance arches. This renovation gave the church an elegant and festive look, making it one of the most beautiful churches not only in the city, but also in Russia.

The church was closed in 1935, and its premises were used as warehouses. Unfortunately, after several years of storing salt inside the temple, some of the frescoes on its walls were irretrievably lost.

In 1992, the church was transferred to the jurisdiction of the Russian Old Believers Church, which began its restoration.

A unique carved iconostasis, made by Yaroslavl craftsmen in the late 17th and early 18th centuries, has been preserved inside the temple. Experts consider it a real masterpiece of decorative and applied art.