Church of the Transfiguration in Red. Staritsky district of the Tver region: a church in the village of Krasnoye, a spring in Maslovo and a manor in Bernovo

The Church of the Transfiguration of the Savior was built by State Councilor Mark Fedorovich Poltoratsky in his estate in the village of Krasnoye in the Staritsky district in 1790 instead of the dilapidated wooden Church of the Resurrection of the Word.
It represents the author's repetition of the famous church of the Chesme Palace near St. Petersburg, built according to the project of Yu.M. Felten. There was a similar building in the estate of A.D. Lansky in the village of Posadnikovo, Pskov province.

Temple before restoration.

Three such temples were built. There are only two left. Unfortunately, in the Pskov region, the temple was dismantled for building materials.

On the Tver land, this is one of the rarest pseudo-Gothic buildings of the 18th century. The building is built of brick with white old stone used in the decor. In plan, it is a “four-leafed”; the decoration of the facades is distinguished by a very arbitrary interpretation of Gothic motifs. The surface of the walls, treated with narrow vertical rods and lancet arches, is cut through by high lancet windows. Above the entrance is a round window of the "Gothic rose" type. The composition of the portal includes sculptural images of angels. The walls are crowned with a low spongy parapet with sharp turrets characteristic of the Gothic style. All five domes of the temple are completed with the same turrets with sharp Gothic spiers. The height of the church is more than 24 m, width and length - 20 m.

The Poltoratsky family left a significant mark on the economic and cultural life of the Tver region. A.A. Polotoratskaya donated to the church in the village. In red, two liturgy sets, two gospels and two chasubles. She also arranged a carved wooden iconostasis with images painted on canvas, and it was gilded by the landowner A.N. Ermolaeva. In 1824 A.M. Poltoratsky, who inherited from. Krasnoe, filed a petition with the Archbishop of Tver, Jonah, for permission to build a fence around the church at his own expense, indicating that the church was “sufficient in splendor and property, among others.”

In the absence of a separate bell tower, 4 copper bells weighing 812, 267, 20 and 17 kg, cast in Moscow, hung on "two western and northern towers on top of the church."

The church was surrounded by a fence, originally dug in by a moat, and by 1889 it was made of stone, with a wooden lattice.

After the closure of the temple in the 1930s. its interior decoration was completely lost, it housed a collective farm warehouse. In 1979-1982 the conservation of the building was carried out (architect I. Avdeeva, engineer G. Bar).

Since 1999, spiritual life has been resumed in the Church of the Transfiguration of the Savior, work has been carried out to preserve and restore it. Since 1999, Priest Dmitry Kasparov has been appointed viceroy of the Bishop's Metochion.

In with. Krasnoye also preserved a two-story manor house with a mezzanine and outbuildings.
The source of information.

From the second half of the 18th century, Mark Fedorovich Poltoratsky (1729–1795), the first director of the court singing chapel, became the owner of the Krasnoye estate, who in 1763 was granted the hereditary nobility. His wife Agafokleya Alexandrovna was an outstanding personality. She donated to monasteries, built temples, helped the poor. These qualities of her were also manifested during the construction of the famous Transfiguration Church in Krasnoye.
Since the 1780s, large-scale construction began in Krasnoe. And it started with the church. In 1783, M.F. Poltoratsky applied to Bishop Arseny of Tver with a request for permission to build a new stone church in the village. June 13, 1783 Bishop of Tver and Kashinsky Arseniy gives a blessing. On June 30, 1785, the building charter for the construction of a new church was finally issued to Poltoratsky.
It was decided to build a church similar to the famous Chesme Church, built in 1777-1780 at the behest of Catherine II by architect Yuri Matveyevich Felten near St. Petersburg. Probably, the wife of Mark Fedorovich Poltoratsky Agafokleya Alexandrovna, who literally idolized the empress, hoped by building the church, which was a complete copy of Chesmenskaya, to once again attract the attention of Catherine II and achieve her goodwill. By the way, another similar temple was built in 1780 according to the project of Yu. M. Felten in the estate of A. D. Lanskoy in the village of Posadnikovo, Novorzhevsky district, Pskov province. The construction of the temple was carried out with the care and dependence of A. A. Poltoratskaya for five years, and was completed in 1790, on the 20th anniversary of the Battle of Chesme, but its consecration in the name of the Transfiguration of the Lord took place only 13 years later, on July 21, 1803. It was carried out by the Archbishop of Tver and Kashin Pavel.
In 1931, the Krasnovskaya Transfiguration Church was closed. The bells of the temple were destroyed, the fence was removed and, according to the recollections of the old-timers, they were placed around the city garden in the city of Staritsa. Until 1998, the collective farm used the church as a warehouse.
This Temple is one of the rarest pseudo-Gothic structures of the 18th century in Tver.
The building is made of brick with the use of white oxbow stone in the decor, it is a “four-leaf” in plan, the decoration of the facades of the temple is distinguished by its originality and arbitrary interpretation of Gothic motifs. The surface of the walls, treated with narrow vertical rods and lancet arches, is cut through by high lancet windows. Above the entrance is a round window of the "Gothic rose" type. The composition of the portal includes sculptural images of angels. The walls, like a crown, are crowned with a low spongy parapet with sharp pinnacles characteristic of the Gothic style. Turrets with sharp Gothic spiers complete the main and four small domes of the church. Everything here speaks of an unstoppable striving upwards. The building is as if woven from openwork lace, full of refined grace.
On July 12, 1998, the day of the chief apostles Peter and Paul, the Transfiguration Church was opened in the village of Krasnoe.

Somehow I was quite surprised when I saw in the photographs a Velma similar to the Chesme Church in St. Petersburg, but in a different landscape.

This one in Petersburg

And this one in the Tver region

The village of Krasnoye is once a rich estate of the Poltoratskys, close friends of A. S. Pushkin. From the estate, the Outlandish Church of the Transfiguration of the Lord, outbuildings, the remains of a landscape park descending to the Holokholna River have been preserved.
They are all nearby, on the same street. The dilapidated, tormented main house in its austere decoration seems too simple compared to the royally luxurious manor temple. The prototype for this religious building was the church of the Chesme Palace in St. Petersburg, built by the famous architect Yu.M. Felten. The project turned out to be so successful that it received another incarnation - in the Lansky estate, in the Pskov region.
This is a pseudo-Gothic monument unique for the Tver region with an unusual four-leaf composition, in the decoration of which white stone is used much more widely than in the original, right up to the sculptures above the portal.

The Church of the Transfiguration, built by the Poltoratskys in their estate in 1790, is the author's repetition of the famous church of the already mentioned Chesme Church - instead of the dilapidated wooden Church of the Resurrection of the Word, built according to the project of the famous Russian architect Yu. M. Felten near St. Petersburg. Another similar building appeared in the estate of A. D. Lansky in the village of Posadnikovo, Pskov province. The creation of three identical structures according to one project testifies to the high appreciation of the author's intention by contemporaries. The building is one of the rarest pseudo-Gothic structures of the 18th century in Tver.
The building is made of brick with the use of white oxbow stone in the decor, it is a “four-leaf” in plan, the decoration of the facades of the temple is distinguished by its originality and arbitrary interpretation of Gothic motifs. The surface of the walls, treated with narrow vertical rods and lancet arches, is cut through by high lancet windows. Above the entrance is a round window of the "Gothic rose" type. The composition of the portal includes sculptural images of angels. The walls, like a crown, are crowned with a low spongy parapet with sharp pinnacles characteristic of the Gothic style. Turrets with sharp Gothic spiers complete the main and four small domes of the church. Everything here speaks of an unstoppable striving upwards. The building is as if woven from openwork lace, full of refined grace.

Casting a glance at the estate from the church, one involuntarily marvels at the simplicity and earthiness of the buildings. The two-storey building (not counting the semi-basement floor) is almost square in plan and lacks rich decoration.


However, it cannot be said that the estate is devoid of its charm and some nobility of lines. The main façade is somewhat dry or boring.
(C) photo of Elena Terkel and Dmitry Terkel
The park facade of the main house looks more interesting. It is clear that much has been lost here. Some sources say that it was a house with a mezzanine. The location of the main house on the high bank of the Holokholnya made it possible to admire distant landscapes until the park alleys were overgrown and centuries-old trees began to fall.

Now you can go down to the dammed river along the old alley. A little sad.

The history of this family is interesting: Fyodor Filippovich Poltoratsky at the beginning of the 18th century settled in Sosnitsa, Chernihiv province, and became a priest. In 1929, his son was born - Mark, determined by his father to study first at the Chernigov "Latin School", and then at the Kiev-Mohyla Theological Academy. The boy had a good voice and sang in the academic choir. In 1744, Aleksey Grigoryevich Razumovsky, who accompanied Empress Elizabeth Petrovna on a trip to Ukraine, heard him singing. The count liked the singing of the young man and he took Poltoratsky to Petersburg for singing service at court. From that moment on, the life of young Mark Fedorovich changed dramatically. In 1750 he was enrolled in the St. Petersburg Italian Opera Company, where he received the stage name "Marco Porturatsky". In 1753, he became the regent of the Court Singing Chapel, where the Empress regularly heard him singing, sending more than once to select the best singers in Ukraine (by the way, in 1790, 9-year-old Dmitry Bortnyansky, the future great composer, was among those selected). But back to the career of M.F. Poltoratsky. In 1754 he became a colonel, in 1763 he received a noble rank. His family life was prosperous. Married to Agafoklea Alexandrovna Shishkova, he became the father of 22 children. Of course, there were also estates in the Tver and Kursk provinces. Among them is Red. Already in 1783, Mark Fedorovich filed the first petition for the construction of a stone church in Red to replace the dilapidated wooden one, permission was received in 1785 - after a second petition. But only in 1790 the Church of the Transfiguration was built, and the consecration took place in 1803 after the death of M.F. Poltoratsky (died in 1795). The temple was erected according to the project of the architect Yu.M. The church has been well preserved, despite the fact that in the 1930s a collective farm warehouse was placed in it. In 1979-1982 the building was conserved. Now the church has been restored and is functioning. Manor buildings were less fortunate. We simply do not know anything about the old ones, and the current ones were most likely erected in the second half of the 19th century under the descendants of M.F. Poltoratsky. Interestingly, Mark Fedorovich was the grandfather of Anna Petrovna Kern. By the way, Aleksey Pavlovich Poltoratsky, who became the owner of the estate in 1826, also visited Krasnoye, and A.S. Pushkin himself. Further, Krasnoye remained in the Poltoratsky family until the beginning of the 20th century, when the doctor Boris Borisovich Kostylev, who lived here before the revolution, became the owner of the estate. The main house of the estate and the park served the people for a long time. While the school was located in the building, everything was fine: the roof was being repaired, the children were watching the park. But the school has moved to a new building. The result - no one needs the estate, although it is registered with the Regional Committee for the Protection of Monuments. In the early 1990s, the Patriarchate even seemed to acquire it, as N.A. Poltoratsky wrote in his memoirs: “In the conversation that took place this time, Bishop Pitirim told us that he had recently bought the Poltoratsky family estate in the Tver province, in the village of Krasnoye, and, ... suggested that we make a trip to this estate in the car provided by him, the house of which has been preserved without redevelopment and which Vladyka Pitirim wants to equip for some kind of charitable institution. Alas, something did not work out with the charitable institution, and now the wind is walking around the house ...

Well, as a bonus, a few photos of both churches.

The Krasnoye estate is located in the Staritsky district, 15 km from the town of Staritsa, on the banks of the Holokholnya river. Since the 14th century, the village of Krasnoye, as a settlement, has been part of the ancient Tver principality. At the beginning of the 18th century, the secretary of the Foreign Collegium “Sergey Ilyin son of Semyonov” was the owner of the “patrimony of the village of Krasnoye”, and in the second half of the 18th century the lands were transferred to the real state councilor Mark Fedorovich Poltoratsky and his wife Agafoklea Alexandrovna, nee Shishkova.

At the end of the 18th century, a large manor was located at the fork in the roads Staritsa - Torzhok, Staritsa - Ostashkov, on a natural terrace, in the bend of the dammed river Holokholnya. At that time, the master's house stood at a fork in the road and was wooden, and exactly along the axis of the house was the wooden Church of the Resurrection of Christ.

In the 1790s, on the territory of the estate, Mark Fedorovich built according to the project of the architect Yu.M. Felten stone church of the Transfiguration of the Lord.

The appearance of such an unusual temple for these places has haunted researchers for many years. According to one version, the indirect reason for this choice - the construction in the Russian outback of an exact author's copy of the church of the Chesme Palace in St. Petersburg, built in honor of the brilliant victory of the Russian squadron over the Turkish fleet in the Chesme Bay of the Aegean Sea - was Mark Fedorovich's wounded pride. The son of the cathedral archpriest of the Chernigov province Fyodor Filippovich, thanks to his musical abilities, he was close to the imperial court. At the age of 25 he received the rank of colonel, and at the age of 34 he was elevated to the hereditary nobility. Such a rapid rise and transition to the environment of high-born nobles caused envy and irritation. At court, Mark Fedorovich was not very fond of. Perhaps, by choosing the capital's architect and repeating the image of the temple, the consecration of which was solemnly celebrated by all of Russia, Mark Fedorovich emphasized his place at the imperial court and the importance of his personality.

In 1795, there was a manor house “stone with an orchard ..” After the death of Agafokleya Alexandrovna in 1822 (Mark Fedorovich died in 1795), the estate passes to his son Alexander Markovich, who is seriously engaged in the reconstruction of the entire estate economy.

In the second half of the 19th century, the estate passed to the Wulf family, then to the nobles Kostylev. Before the revolution, the estate belonged to the doctor of medicine Boris Borisovich Kostylev. From the beginning of World War I until the revolution, there was a hospital for wounded soldiers on the estate.

On the territory of the Krasnoye estate today, a church, a destroyed main house, a number of outbuildings and a terraced park have been preserved.

I walked here not in vain,
swallowing road dust,
white-stone and gable roof
true story turned to dust...
House with windows on the bell tower,
to the temple (which is always to the east),
on the waters of the Holokholenka River,
to someone's family background.
I walked here not in vain -
through close flashes of thunderstorms,
pearl glows red
in a simple birch necklace.
Beautifully beautiful grows old.
Don't let the beauty fade
please, guests, to Staritsa,
to ring the copper on the temple ...

Tamara Karyakina

The village of Krasnoye is located in the Tver region, a few kilometers from the town of Staritsa. The village of Krasnoye is once a rich estate of the Poltoratskys, close friends of A. S. Pushkin. From the estate, a house, a church, outbuildings, and the remains of a landscape park descending to the Holokholna River have been preserved.

The Church of the Transfiguration, built by the Poltoratskys in their estate in 1790, is an exact copy of the famous church of the Chesme Palace (1777-1780) in St. Petersburg, built according to the design of the famous Russian architect Yu. M. Felten near. Another similar building appeared in the estate of A. D. Lansky in the village of Posadnikovo, Pskov province. The creation of three identical structures according to one project testifies to the high appreciation of the author's design by contemporaries. The Church of the Transfiguration of the Lord is one of the rarest pseudo-Gothic buildings of the 18th century in Tver.

The building is made of brick with the use of white oxbow stone in the decor, it is a “four-leaf” in plan, the decoration of the facades of the temple is distinguished by its originality and arbitrary interpretation of Gothic motifs. The surface of the walls, treated with narrow vertical rods and lancet arches, is cut through by high lancet windows. Above the entrance is a round window of the "Gothic rose" type. The composition of the portal includes sculptural images of angels. The walls, like a crown, are crowned with a low spongy parapet with sharp pinnacles characteristic of the Gothic style. Turrets with sharp Gothic spiers complete the main and four small domes of the church. Everything here speaks of an unstoppable striving upwards. The building is as if woven from openwork lace, full of refined grace.