Description of the attraction
The ensemble of the Annunciation and Nikolskaya churches is located in the city of Kargopol, Kargopol district, Arkhangelsk region. It is located near the New Trade Square on the Old Market.
The Annunciation Church is one of the unique historical and architectural monuments. This is a huge majestic temple, on the walls of which stone patterns are perfectly preserved. The Church of the Annunciation was built in 1692 by the Kargopol bourgeois Shakhanov with the money of the parishioners. It was a 2-storey cold temple. The name of Shakhanov is mentioned in the manuscript of the priest V. I. Popov. Not finishing the construction, he died. The same manuscript tells about the priest I. Afanasyev, on whose initiative the church was completed.
The construction of the Annunciation Church, suspended with the death of the main customer, the tradesman Shakhanov, was later delayed in connection with the construction of St. Petersburg, which began in 1703. In 1714, a decree was issued prohibiting "any stone structure." And only in 1721 it was allowed to complete the previously started churches. From this we can conclude: the date of construction of the Church of the Annunciation, from its foundation to the consecration of the thrones, dates back to 1692-1729. This brief and semi-legendary information explains the nature of its architectural and compositional features.
The Church of the Annunciation makes a strong impression. She is rightly called "adorned and awesome." The unique stateliness of its walls is striking, but, most importantly, their decorative white-stone decoration has been brought to perfection. The attention of architects and art historians is attracted by the extraordinary variety of sizes and the generosity of the treatment of windows and platbands of the church. It should be noted that for 34 windows, which are located on the facades of the building, there are up to 15 types of window edging. Well-known and everywhere used decorative elements (grates, rollers, flagella, rhombuses) in the Church of the Annunciation are combined into complex and sophisticated combinations, giving each window its own unique finished image. The western, northern, and especially the southern facades amaze with their delicately thought-out proportionality, rhythm and interconnection of windows and portals. But the real miracle of Kargopol architecture is the altar wall of the Annunciation Church. The eastern wall, with 3 semicircles of altars, is a masterpiece of wall treatment (according to art critic N. E. Grabar).
Thanks to scholars, researchers and connoisseurs of architecture, the Annunciation Church is world famous, despite the fact that for many decades it led the ordinary life of a parish church. Its top floor was consecrated in the name of the Annunciation. There were 6 thrones in the church. In the manuscript of the priest V. I. Popov, a description of its interior decoration is given. The temple had a "skillfully carved iconostasis, gilded with red gold" and consisted of 4 tiers. The metric of the Annunciation Church contains a mention of the temple icon of the Annunciation, the icon of the Mother of God of Tikhvin and the icon case (box) of mahogany, which contained 6 life-giving crosses, 6 Gospels and more.
Unfortunately, all the interior decoration of the church was lost. For a long time, it was closed and destroyed. Now, on the initiative of the Kargopol Museum, the Church of the Annunciation is gradually being restored.
Next to it is the Church of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker (St. Nicholas Church), dating back to 1741. It is currently renovated from the outside. Once in the ensemble of the temple there was another free-standing hipped-roof bell tower made of wood and the Vladimir Church, which have not survived.
