Beside the Stream

There were lots of churches and monasteries in the cities between Saint Petersburg and Moscow.  The churches we saw had some common characteristics.  The churches were built for standing, not sitting.  

Three walls would be completely covered by frescoes depicting biblical scenes.

The ceilings were frescoed as well.  About four or five feet above the floor, at the bottom of this photograph, a ribbon of stylized text runs around the room; below that the wall is plain, and easily repainted when it becomes grubby. 

The interior columns are painted too. 

  I love the frescoes.  I think every public place would be improved by wall-to-wall murals.  But the fourth wall is a different thing entirely.  It isn’t friendly cartoons of biblical themes.

Each church has an icon wall, where rows of icons are set in carved and gilded frames.  The workmanship on the icon wall is often amazing.  Here, the carved columns between each icon may have been made from individual trunks.  The frame of the Madonna and child is often encrusted with semiprecious stones. 

The arrangement of an icon wall is stylized, with certain types of icons in each row and a specified number of rows.  The placement of each icon has meaning.  If I could read this icon wall, I could tell you the name of the church. 

Here is a Russian kissing an icon.  It seemed as though the icons that were most regularly kissed were behind glass.  

This young man crossed the rope to kiss this particular Madonna.  She was under glass too, so she was probably expecting him.