Church of St. Barbara in Kutná Hora. Treasure of Kutna Hora - Church of St. Barbara Cathedral of St. Barbara Kutna Hora address
This temple stands in defiance. Despite the former power of the Sedlec Monastery, despite the Hussite wars, despite the lack of money, despite the times... This temple has always been the pride of the city, the pride of the local miners, and to this day it remains the most famous Kutnogorsk building. The Church of St. Barbara is considered the most original late Gothic temple in Europe; its construction became a symbol of the former wealth and power of the city.
History of construction
The history of the temple is connected with the long struggle of the ambitious inhabitants of Kutna Hora with the nearby Sedlec Monastery for independence in spiritual matters. The temple was founded on the initiative of several noble Kutnogorsk families, and the strongest impetus for the start of work was given by the local Brotherhood of the Corpus Christi, which organized a fundraiser for its construction. As a result, the temple was founded outside the city wall, on land that belonged to the Prague Chapter, then is outside the jurisdiction of the Sedlec Monastery.
The first work has begun in 1388, and the architect was chosen Jan Parler, son of the famous Prague builder Cathedral of St. Vita. It is no coincidence that the Church of St. Barbara resembles the famous Prague Cathedral. The people of Kutnogorsk really wanted to be “on an equal footing” with the Prague residents, so the choice fell on Parler. According to information from several sources, Parler's plans were to build a church here at a height of twice as big than the one you see today.
Work has begun at a rapid pace - already in four years the temple grew to half its present height and in it 15 altars were consecrated, each of whom was assigned his own, separate priest. However, Parler's plans were not destined to come true. The outbreak of the Hussite wars forced work on the church to stop for sixty years, they resumed only in 1482.
The real turning point in the course of work is associated with the activities of Prague craftsmen - first Matthias Rejsek, and after him - the royal architect Benedict Reith.
Matthias Reisek became famous not only as an outstanding architect, but also as a decorator. The construction of the Powder Gate in Prague is associated with his name; he used his art here too. He built a vault over the choir, completed the triforium, and supplemented the building with many decorative objects.
The arrival of his successor Benedikt Reith meant a number of fundamental changes for the building. Reith boldly changed the five-nave layout conceived by Parler into a three-nave one, above which he erected a monumental vault with carved ribs (after all, the temple had been flooded with rain until then), which he had previously used in Vladislav Hall of Prague Castle. According to Reith's design, the cathedral was built even after his death. There is an opinion that this was a project originally intended for the Cathedral of St. Vita, but not useful there.
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| Cathedral vaults. Arch. Benedict Reith |
Along with the decline in silver production, financial sources gradually dried up. When these sources completely dried up, the cathedral, unfinished on the western side, was closed by a temporary wall in 1558.
In 1626 the cathedral was transferred to management Jesuit Order and was largely rebuilt in Baroque style, but remained unfinished. In 1884, on the initiative of the local archaeological society, the city begins further construction, which was finally completed only in 1905. Thus ended the story of its construction, the completion of which the Church of St. Barbara was waiting for 517 years old.
Saint Barbara
Saint Barbara lived in the 3rd century in the Phoenician city of Iliopolis. Her father, Dioscurus, was a pagan and a representative of the aristocracy in Asia Minor under the emperor Maximian. She was particularly beautiful and was locked by her father in a tower to hide her from prying eyes. During the period of imprisonment, Saint Barbara, studying the world around her, which was visible to her from the windows, came to the idea of the presence of a single Creator. When her father allowed her to leave the tower for the purpose of her marriage, Varvara met the Christians of Iliopolis and was baptized.
When the father found out about his daughter’s religion, Varvara was brutally tortured: she was scourged with ox sinews, and her wounds were rubbed with hair wool. The ruler of the city, Martian, gave the father the right to carry out a trial over his daughter, who beheaded Saint Barbara. Dioscurus and Martian suffered retribution - they were both burned by lightning.
Saint Barbara is considered the patroness against sudden death, which in Christianity is considered in most cases a punishment, like death without repentance and communion. In the Catholic Church he is one of the fourteen holy helpers.
Who, if not Saint Barbara, should have been chosen as the patroness of the miners, for whom such punishment as sudden death awaited underground at every step? Residents of the city often turned to their patroness. They prayed to her below, underground, especially when there were rubble, and above, in the temple. She knew how to rescue miners from seemingly completely hopeless situations. In Kutna Hora there were hundreds of stories about her help: either she discovered a strong rock, or she shone in the darkness, showing the way... The temple at the top was, as it were, a guarantee of the help of the patron saint below, in the mine. Or, at least, instilled hope for her help.
Five hundred year legacy
Architecture of the Cathedral of St. The Barbarians is a wonderful visual aid to Gothic architecture in the Czech Republic. In addition to works of art in the Baroque style, the decoration of the cathedral includes a sanctuary from 1510, made in the workshop of Matthias Rejsek, which is located in the presbytery and late Gothic choir benches, decorated with carvings by master Jakub Nymburski from 1480-1490.
Many decorations of the Church of St. Barbara remain hidden from the eyes of the visitor. Churches were built not only for the eyes of people, but, for the most part, it was done for the glory of God. If you arm yourself with binoculars, then at the top, on the columns, under the arches, you can see the fantastic fauna, which consists of chimeras, bats, demons, harpies, toads or winged rams. On one of the pillars in the southern part there is a small sculpture of a monkey holding an orange. This is the very first image of an orange in Czech sculpture.
Some chapels display remarkable and exceptional late Gothic art for medieval art. murals with a mountain theme. The most valuable of them are in the chapel-tomb of Michal Smišek from Vrhovišt - The Arrival of the Queen of Sheba, the Court of Trajan, the Cumaean Sibyl and others.
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| Fragments of frescoes |
The Church of St. Barbara is located in the very center of Moscow, a stone's throw from Red Square, next to the Kitay-Gorod Metro station. The street on which the church is located was named after the erected temple - Varvarka.
The location for construction was not chosen by chance. The Great Martyr Varvara was considered the patroness of the trading people, and Kitay-Gorod has long been considered an important “business center” of Moscow. Craftsmen, artisans and merchants settled here, and shopping arcades were located. Almost from the moment of construction until our times, the Church of St. Barbara was considered one of the most revered in Moscow.
Church history
The Church of St. Barbara was built in 1514, during the reign of Prince Vasily Ioannovich. The funds were allocated by the merchants Vasily Bobr, Fyodor Vepr and Yushka Urvikhvost, and the author of the architectural project was the famous Italian architect Aleviz Fryazin. It was this master who built the Kremlin Archangel Cathedral.
During the time of Ivan the Terrible, the Church of the Great Martyr Barbara became an important place of pilgrimage for Muscovites and people coming from other cities. The miraculous icon of St. Barbara was kept in the Temple.
In 1730, a fire severely damaged the temple; on the orders of Empress Anna Ioannovna, the Church of the Great Martyr Barbara was completely restored. But by the end of the eighteenth century, the authorities considered that the old church did not correspond to the splendor of Kitay-Gorod. By this time, the English Courtyard and Gostiny Dvor had been rebuilt, and well-appointed covered shopping arcades appeared.
Metropolitan Platon declared the church not beautiful enough; his initiative to build a new Temple was supported by the famous Moscow merchants Baryshnikov and Samghin. They were the ones who allocated funds for this. The wives of the entrepreneurs were miraculously healed thanks to the miraculous image and, in the end, a decision was made to demolish the building and erect a more modern temple on Varvarka.
So a new elegant building in the style of classicism appeared in Moscow. The author of the project was Rodion Kazakov. The building, indeed, turned out to be so beautiful that many Russian architects, when constructing churches, took the Church of St. Barbara as a standard.
In the 1920s, almost all the buildings in Kitay-Gorod were demolished and the streets were renamed. So, Varvarka began to be called Stepan Razin Street. Once upon a time, the rebel leader was taken along this street to execution on Red Square.
The church survived, but the crosses were removed from the Temple, the bell tower was destroyed, and the premises were first set up as a warehouse, and later given over to the needs of the Society for the Preservation of Monuments.
The church was returned to believers in 1991.
Now the Temple has been restored and services are held there. The church is part of the complex of the Moscow Patriarch's Compound in Zaryadye.
Not long ago, archaeologists discovered in the basement elements of white stone vaults erected by Fryazin. This evidence of the history of Moscow will soon be seen by everyone.
Patron Saint of the Temple
The temple was consecrated in honor of the Holy Great Martyr Barbara. This woman lived at the turn of the third and fourth centuries and was the daughter of the noble Phoenician Dioscorus. These were times of persecution of the Disciples of Christ, but Varvara sincerely believed and accepted Baptism. Her father found out about this and took her into custody, trying to get her daughter to renounce the Faith. But Varvara was adamant. Toga Dioscorus gave his daughter to the city authorities. By order of the ruler Martian, Varvara was brutally tortured. However, the Savior Himself appeared to the girl, he healed her wounds and told her not to be afraid of anything.
The final point of our route through the sights of Kutna Hora was a visit to Cathedral of St. Barbara (Chrám sv. Barbory). This impressive temple is the second largest Gothic church in the country and is second in size and importance only to St. Vitus Cathedral in. For its unusual architecture, the temple was also at one time classified as one of the most unusual Gothic religious buildings in Central Europe, in addition, since 1995 it has been included in the UNESCO World Heritage List.
After visiting, we walked around the city a little.
The road between and the Cathedral of St. Barbara did not cause us any particular delight. At some point, we decided to take a shortcut and wandered into a garage area, from which we were not only kindly taken out, but also teleported absolutely free of charge to the cathedral itself by a local resident.
After having a snack and relaxing in a nearby cafe, we head towards the spiers of the cathedral.
The road to the cathedral goes through the sculpture gallery, which was created as a rival to the Prague sculptural ensemble. The sculptures created by Frantisek Baugut depict: St. John of Nepomuk, St. Barbara, St. Ludwig, St. Isidore, St. Joseph, St. Ignatius of Loyola, St. Wenceslas, St. Francis of Xaver, St. Joseph of Kalan, St. Florian, St. Franciszek Borgias, St. Anna, St. Charlemagne.
There is a legend that this bridge can move a person anywhere, but it will no longer be possible to cross the bridge back. It can take you to the past or future, or it can send you to another world, from where there will be no turning back. And the only option to return is to get to Prague at that time and try to go back across the Charles Bridge. This is such an easy drug addiction :) Just in case, we watched these guys. They were not sent anywhere, and we, now more courageous, walked across the bridge.
This is the view from the bridge.
Since the beginning of the 14th century, Kutna Hora has been fighting with Prague for the right to be the best city in the Czech Republic. The fact is that after silver mines were opened here, Kutna Hora became the richest city not only in the Czech Republic, but also in Europe, and the city received royal privileges. And the city residents decided to show that their city is capable of surpassing Prague in beauty and luxury.
Construction of the cathedral began around 1388 and continued for 5 centuries with varying success, and it was finally completed only in 1905. But it is believed that according to the architect’s idea (Jan Parler - the son of Peter Parler, who designed the Cathedral of St. Vitus), the temple should have been twice as long. And that is why it seems that the temple is cut off in the middle and there must be a continuation. The reason is simple - the city simply did not have the funds to continue such a grandiose construction: the mines dried up, and with it the period of prosperity of Kutna Hora ended.
And where the pediment is now located, there was a temporary wall, and only after the Jesuits came to the city in the century, a permanent wall with a Baroque pediment was erected here, and Parler’s project remained unrealized.
A new stage in the construction of the temple is associated with the names of also very famous architects, such as Mateás Rejsek, who built the famous Powder Tower (Pražna Brana) in Prague, as well as Benedict Wright, who also became famous for his work in the capital - according to his design, the Vladislav Hall was built, which is one one of the largest medieval halls in Europe. Wright also owns the lace vault here.
On the ceiling of the temple are depicted the coats of arms of wealthy local families who donated their money for the construction. In addition, in the cathedral you can see a statue of a miner. Many people mistakenly believe that this is a monk in white robes, but such white capes were worn by miners before going down into the mine, so that they could be seen in the dark in case of blockages.
In the corners of the upper church there are large wooden sculptures of Christian virtues of the first half of the 17th century: justice, moderation, caution and courage.
Rich central altar, luxurious side altars from the late 17th to early 18th centuries.
The stained glass windows of the late 19th and early 20th centuries amaze with the beauty and brightness of their colors. The author of which was Frantisek Urban, a famous Czech artist.
It is worth mentioning the benches made of solid wood with elaborate carvings in the center of the temple. According to legend, these benches, on which parishioners could sit during services, were first ordered for the Cathedral of St. Vita. But the Kutnogorsk residents, wanting to outdo the Prague residents, intercepted the order, paying double the price for the benches.
The cathedral is truly impressive and I highly recommend visiting it.
Working hours:
- April-October 9.00-18.00;
- November-December 10.00-17.00;
- January-February 10.00-16.00, March 10.00-17:00;
- Closed on December 24 (Catholic Christmas).
- for adults - 85 CZK;
- for people over 65 years old and students from 15 to 26 years old - 65 CZK;
- for children from 6 to 15 years old - 40 CZK,
- children under 6 years old - free.
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Construction of the cathedral began around 1388. The author of the first project was obviously Jan Parler, the son of the famous Peter Parler (author of the Charles Bridge). The building was designed in the form of a cathedral with a gallery around the presbytery. Initially, it was planned to erect a three-nave cathedral, but it soon turned into a five-nave building. In 1420, the Hussite Wars interrupted construction work.
Only 60 years later, a new famous master was invited to the construction - Matthias Reisek (author of the Powder Gate in Prague). In 1499, he erected a mesh vault over the presbytery (corresponding to the altar in Orthodox churches. Only priests have the right to enter there). The height of this space is 33 meters. From 1512 to 1532, Benedikt Reith of Pistov (author of the Vladislav Hall in Prague Castle) worked on the construction. He creates an independent space above the lower five-nave space - three-nave, which has no equal. According to the design of Benedict Reith, a vault was erected over the main nave. The height of this space is 30 meters. The length of the cathedral is 70 meters and the width is 40 meters. In 1558, construction was completed with the construction of a temporary wall on the west side (organ).
The main portal of the cathedral appeared only in 1884-1905, when its general reconstruction was carried out.
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The mesh ceiling over the presbytery and again the Czech love for coats of arms.
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The current Neo-Gothic main altar dates back to the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century. St. Barbara (patron of miners), to whom the cathedral is dedicated, is depicted on its right wing. This is a woman with a book and a tower.
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When in the 17th and 18th centuries the Gothic Kutná Hora became a Baroque city, this style penetrated into the Cathedral of St. Barbara. This is confirmed by a beautiful organ cabinet from the first half of the 18th century. Its mechanism is new and consists of 4,000 pipes, three keyboards and 45 registers.
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The next three chapels contain baroque altars created in 1680-1710. On the first altar there is a sculpture of a Gothic Madonna from 1380. This is the oldest exhibit in the entire cathedral. The Madonna is original, but the coloring is a later addition in the Baroque style around 1700.
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Stained glass is not mosaic, but painting on glass. The oldest is around 1898, and the youngest is 1923. The author of the sketches is the artist of historical paintings Frantisek Urban.
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Late Gothic painting from the late 15th century has been preserved in these chapels.
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On the fresco, the Queen of Sheba is in front of Solomon.
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Saint Kristov walking on water with Jesus in his arms.
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Miners' Chapel.
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Here, under the window, scenes from the life of ordinary miners are depicted.
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The sculpture of a miner was made in 1700. The miner is depicted in a suit. He holds a torch in one hand and a working tool in the other. A leather apron around the sides protected him during work and was also used for descending into the mines. Kutnogorsk miners worked 6 days a week, 10-14 hours a day. It is interesting that at the beginning of the 16th century they worked even at a depth of 500 m, at that time these were the deepest mines in the world.
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The stone pulpit was made in 1560 by the stonemason Leopold. In 1665 it was decorated with wooden paneling and a roof.
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From below the main nave there is a view of the ribbed vault made in 1540-1547. The fields of the vault depict the coats of arms of the workshops and townspeople.
In fact, the impressions are incredible when you stand in the middle of this vast, centuries-old hulk. 
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In the corners of the upper church there are large wooden sculptures of Christian virtues from the 1st half of the 17th century - justice, moderation, caution and courage. There is a suspicion that the photo shows justice. It’s curious how caution and courage coexisted as virtues among them?
Moscow Church of St. Great Martyr Varvara is located near the Kremlin on the street of the same name in Kitai-Gorod, Varvarka. The temple was built in 1514 by the Italian architect Aleviz Fryazin himself, who built the Kremlin Archangel Cathedral. The miraculous image of St. was kept in the church. Barbara the Great Martyr, who became famous during the time of Ivan the Terrible. In Soviet times, since 1933, the street bore the name of Stepan Razin - it was along this road that in June 1671 he was taken to his execution at Vasilyevsky Spusk.
Barbara, a holy martyr of the 3rd–4th centuries AD, was the daughter of the noble and wealthy Dioscorus from the Phoenician city of Iliopolis. During the persecution of Christianity, she accepted holy baptism and was imprisoned by her own father for this. Then Dioscorus completely gave his daughter to the ruler of the city, Martian. St. Barbara was imprisoned and cruelly tortured, but the Savior himself appeared to her at night and healed her wounds. Once Varvara was taken out into the street, and from the gathered crowd one Christian woman named Juliana began to denounce her tormentors at the top of her voice. She was captured and beheaded along with Barbara in 306.
Like Paraskeva Friday, St. Varvara was revered in Moscow as the patroness of trade, so her church was erected in the very heart of the Moscow trading district. Since ancient times, artisans and merchants settled here, near the Kremlin’s eastern wall, and a lively trade was in full swing right next to the Kremlin.
On the main square of the city, the largest market in the capital was located at that time, and from it this square was initially called Torgovaya. Only in the 19th century, having changed several more names (Troitskaya, Pozharnaya), it began to be officially called Red.
And already in 1534-1538, 20 years after the construction of the first Barbarian Church here, by order of the mother of Ivan the Terrible, Grand Duchess Elena Glinskaya, the entire Moscow trading post was surrounded by a stone fortress wall of Kitay-Gorod, also according to the design of the Italian master Petrok Maly, who built the Assumption Belfry in the Kremlin.
It is believed that the name, so unusual for the Moscow language, “China-Gorod,” came from bundles of poles called kits, which were used in the construction of the wall. Another version connects the name “China” with the word “middle”, that is, located between the Kremlin and the White City.
There were passage gates in the wall, named after the main streets of Kitai-Gorod to which they led: Nikolsky, Ilyinsky, Varvarsky - and these, in turn, were named after the churches that stood on them. It was at the Barbarian Tower that the famous Moscow uprising broke out during the terrible plague epidemic of 1771.
In ancient times, here, in the commercial Kitay-Gorod, there were houses of noble and wealthy people, and even the highest officials of the Moscow state - it was on Varvarka that the chambers of the Romanov boyars were located. Since the middle of the 19th century, Kitay-Gorod became only the business part of the city, something like Moscow City. Shop and bank buildings grew here, displacing almost all residential buildings. And during the day in Kitai-gorod, as in our days, business life was in full swing, and with the arrival of evening this corner in the very center of Moscow became deserted and quiet.
But China Town became a “city within a city” from the very beginning of its appearance precisely thanks to trade and its own trade specialization. On the territory between Varvarka and Moskvoretskaya embankment, including on the site of the Rossiya Hotel, there was the ancient Zaryadye, which meant “behind the shopping arcades,” which stood in huge numbers in Kitay-Gorod right up to Tverskaya Street, including the famous Okhotny Ryad.
Here, in Zaryadye, according to the scientific research of Moscow historian Pyotr Sytin, was the first known street in Moscow named Velikaya, which appeared back in 1468. And here, in ancient Zaryadye, lived rich trading people, or, as they were called in the old days, guests - i.e. merchants engaged in foreign or wholesale trade.
It was precisely such guests, rich Surozh residents with colorful old Russian names and nicknames Vasily Bober, Fyodor Vepr and Yushka Urvikhvostov (they said that they were siblings) who asked to build a church of St. The barbarians provided funds for it. And on the right side of the street from the Kremlin in 1514, the Italian architect Aleviz Fryazin himself, who built the Kremlin Archangel Cathedral, erected the stone church of St. Barbarians. This posad church under the Kremlin walls was built with the obvious participation and approval of the Moscow authorities, who monitored their posad.
The merchant Yushka, by the way, remained in the memory of Moscow for a long time: it was his name that, until the revolution, was borne by one of the Chinese city lanes - Yushkov, now Nikolsky, where the famous Church of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker “Red Bell” stands.
Soon the Barbarian Church became one of the most revered in Moscow. Its location in that distant antiquity was indicated as “behind the market, opposite the Master's Court” - where the Master's Court stood with the Poles living in it, or, according to another, unreliable version, where simply rich people lived.
The miraculous image of St. was kept in the church. Barbara the Great Martyr, who became famous during the time of Ivan the Terrible. The church became the canopy of all trade in Kitay-Gorod. The more ancient church of St. Paraskeva Pyatnitsa was located outside its borders, which means that the Barbarian Church was built only for the Kremlin Posad, which had its own Posad temple. Later, the Chinese city church of Paraskeva Pyatnitsa was built near Gostiny Dvor, but it was dismantled long before the revolution.
Initially, there were long wooden rows at the Market, each for a special product. The names of some of them are still preserved in the names of Kitaygorod lanes - Rybny, Vetoshny... And there were silver, and copper, and kvass, and bast, and even icon rows. By the way, icons were never sold in Moscow - this was considered sacrilege - but only “bartered” and did not haggle over the price. If the person purchasing the icon considered the price set too high for exchange, then the owner told him that this was the “divine” price.
In the first half of the 16th century, the king decided to somehow streamline the trade that spread almost under his windows, and ordered the construction of a special building to move the shops under the roof.
In 1547, on the site of ancient shopping arcades between Ilyinka and Varvarka, the famous Gostiny Dvor was built - a distant ancestor of the modern Gostiny Dvor and GUM, with a name derived from the word “guest”. Part of this huge courtyard were the future Upper and Lower Trading Rows, which at the end of the 19th century were united into a single shopping complex (in Soviet times - GUM). A separate building was built only for the Lower Rows. (In 1626, Gostiny Dvor burned down and was rebuilt, receiving the name New Gostiny Dvor, rebuilt by Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich).
And soon, next to the church, the English Courtyard (house No. 4) appeared - one of the oldest civil buildings in Moscow that has survived to this day. Having established trade relations with England in 1552, Ivan the Terrible granted these ancient chambers to English merchants. A hundred years later, by order of Alexei Mikhailovich, outraged by the execution of the English king Charles I during the English Revolution (“they killed their king Charles to death”), the merchants left Russia, and Peter I opened a “digital” (mathematics school) here.
In the old days, there was also a court order near the church, where inquiries were carried out. This is where the saying “Go to Varvara for punishment” came from.
At the end of the 18th century, the Aleviz Church of St. Varvara was dismantled because Metropolitan Platon (Levshin) considered it not beautiful enough and “not at all appropriate for the splendor of such a special place.” In addition, in the 1730s there was a fire in it, although after that it was restored by Empress Anna Ioannovna and re-consecrated.
The artillery major I. Baryshnikov and the Moscow merchant of the 1st guild N. Samgin also asked for the construction of a new beautiful church - their seriously ill wives were miraculously healed from the relics of St. Barbarians. They also provided funds for its construction.
And then the architect Rodion Kazakov, a namesake and student of the famous Moscow master, erected a beautiful building of the Barbarian Church in the classicist style, which has survived to this day. (Among the works of Rodion Kazakov, who built a lot in Moscow, one can also name the marvelous Church of Martin the Confessor in Taganka and the Batashovs’ estate on Yauzskaya Street, where the 23rd city hospital is now located.)
The new church turned out to be so elegant that they began to imitate this temple in other buildings. Thus, one landowner built an exact copy of the Barbarian Church in his village of Mikhalevo.
At the same time, at the turn of the 18th – 19th centuries, Gostiny Dvor was rebuilt in its modern form. Architect Giacomo Quarenghi, who built Gostiny Dvor on Nevsky Prospekt in St. Petersburg, received an order to build exactly the same building in Moscow, modeled on the capital one.
After the fire of 1812, Gostiny Dvor was restored and rebuilt by the architect O. Bove. Along with the ancient shopping arcades, lines with trading shops appeared here. At first, even under the Code of 1649, only wholesale trade was carried out in Gostiny Dvor, leaving retail trade for the shopping arcades.
The Moscow Gostiny Dvor, under the shadow of St. Barbara, became famous in the Mother See for giving the city the famous expression “the leftovers are sweet,” as well as the experience of wholesale sales of goods at discounted prices. It was like that. One day, a merchant of the Knife Line of the Gostiny Dvor was walking down the street at the end of a working day, and he was stopped by a peddler with raisins: “Buy, sir, the rest, I’ll give you the rest cheaply for the evening.” He didn’t need the raisins, but the peddler didn’t lag behind and persuaded: “Take it, sir, it’s the leftovers!” Cheap and cheerful!” He couldn’t stand it and turned to him: “Well, show me your balance!” However, there were a lot of leftover raisins - 7 pounds (about 3.5 kg). “Well, the remainder, as the remainder should be!” - the seller made excuses. And the buyer suddenly had a brilliant idea about selling cheap leftovers: “Selling leftovers of such and such goods at the cheapest prices.” There was no end to buyers... This is where the saying came from - “the leftovers are sweet,” apparently with a hint of the taste of those same raisins.
Then this practice became an officially established rule - to organize a similar sale of remaining goods in bulk on the first day of the week after Easter - on Fomin Monday. Soon the commercial opening of China Town spread throughout Moscow. Even the chic French shops of Kuznetsky Most fell ill with “residual” fever. One merchant even came up with the idea of selling “literary remains” by organizing... a sale of books in his shop at reduced prices. They had a good laugh at him...
In general, the Kitaygorod merchants had a great sense of humor, and many of their jokes remained in the memory of old Moscow. The objects of such innocent entertainment were mainly buyers. So, noticing a bargainer in the crowd, a merchant from a cloth shop sent a boy as a messenger to other sellers with the question: “Shall we paint it red or green?” Let’s say they conspired to “turn red.” An unsuspecting customer enters the store and asks to see the gray material for his wife’s dress. The merchant with a good-natured smile spreads a roll of red fabric in front of him and praises its deep gray color for a long time. Angry at the crazy salesman, the poor fellow goes to the second shop, to the third... The same story is repeated everywhere. As a result, the buyer runs away in horror, deciding that he has problems with his vision, or even worse - with his head.
In the 70-80s in Moscow there were only bakeries, vegetable and tobacco grocery stores, and therefore for every little thing you had to send to the “city”, that is, to Gostiny Dvor. In front of the shops of Gostiny Dvor there were boys - barkers who invited people to come inside. Their cries were heard from everywhere: “Vax, personal lipstick, Lilac perfume - straight from the garden!” or “We’re selling it, we’re giving a bonus as a souvenir!” The merchants of Gostiny Dvor often sent their boys to fetch customers and to Red Square, giving them a sample of the goods, for example, a pair of boots. Such boys (and often the customers who came from there) were called “area boys.”
Here on Varvarka there were not only shopping establishments, but also drinking establishments. On the corner with the current Nikolsky Lane there stood, judging by the name, an ancient drinking house “Vetoshnaya hysteria”, distorted from the Latin word “austeria” - this is how taverns, hotels and drinking houses were called under Peter. “Vetoshny” came from Vetoshny Row, where they sold second-hand things, which is why one of the alleys of Kitai-Gorod is still called Vetoshny.
Regarding the abundance of such amusements, a funny song appeared, “How Kasyan, a Kamarinsky man, sleeps on Varvarinskaya Street.” Although it was not only the taverns that Chinese city folk went to Varvarka to have fun. This is what the sweetest old Moscow ditty says:
I was walking along Varvarka Street
With a familiar cook,
Because it's Sunday
I turned up at the establishment,
Ordered two couples of tea
For myself and for the cook.
Ordinary taverns were also called “establishments”, where visitors were offered tea in two large teapots - for boiling water and for brewing. One of the most famous Moscow taverns, the famous Bubnov Tavern, stood in the same Vetoshny Lane.
And in front of the Varvarskaya Tower of Kitay-Gorod there used to be a water intake fountain, where water carriers filled their barrels. This fountain supplied water to the whole of Moscow, and was used as a water supply for a long time.
Church of St. Varvara was closed during Soviet times and partially destroyed - the top of the bell tower was broken and the head with the cross was demolished. A warehouse was first built inside, and then the temple building was given over to office buildings. In the 1920s of the 20th century, almost the entire wall of Kitai-Gorod and all of Zaryadye, on the site of which the Rossiya Hotel was built, were demolished.
History has spared only the Barbarian Church. It has survived as an architectural monument and as a definite architectural dominant of the street. Subsequently, it housed a branch of the All-Russian Society for the Protection of Historical and Cultural Monuments, and local history exhibitions were held.
In 1991, the Church of St. The barbarians were returned to the believers.
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