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Not only are there hundreds of churches in Moscow, but there are also quite a few monasteries. We visited three main monasteries in Moscow itself and also made a day trip to Sergei Posad to visit another. We should add that much of our Golden Ring trip also revolved around monasteries.

Danilov

Danilov Monastery Main Gate and Tower

Danilov Monastery Main Church

We rode a trolley bus across town to get to this monastery, one of the main headquarters of the orthodox church in Moscow. That meant that it was a conservative church and that meant that we did not get to see inside any of the buildings and could only admire the exteriors and wander the gardens.

Novodevichy

Novodevichy Monastery Main Church

Mosaic of Jesus on Tympanium

Novodevichy Iconostasis

Our first monastery experience was at Novodevichy. We already had monthly passes for metro, trolley, and bus and so rode the trolleybus to get here. After having some trouble understanding exactly what the tickets we bought were good for, we got to spend a very pleasant few hours wandering the grounds, admiring the museums and bell tower and finally observing our first full orthodox church service.

On a later visit we spent another half day but this time in the cemetery that is next to the monastery and that, like Pere Lachaise in Paris is the place where all the great and good of Moscow are buried, including most recently Raisa Gorbacheva, wife of the former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. We had fun wandering around looking for the famous names that our Lonely Planet guide listed: Mayakovsky, Tchaikovsky, Shalyapin, Gagarin, and so on.

Rublyov

Rublyov Monastery Gate

Rublyov Monastery Church

Rublyov Monastery Icon in Icon Museum

Our strongest memory of the Rublyov monastery is of almost getting caught in the rain. We arrived near the gate around lunch time and so stopped in at a nearby grocery store and bought the makings of a small picnic which we ate in the park just outside the main gate. Just as we were finishing our food, the first raindrops fell and quickly sent us running for shelter through the gate and across the yard to the museum.

We call the monastery Rublyov because it was the home of Andrei Rublyov reputed to be the greatest of Russian icon painters. It now houses a famous icon museum. The museum was the main reason for coming but a not-to-be-overlooked side benefit was the fact that the monastery itself is a rather rustic-looking place when compared with all the opulence of a place like Danilov or Holy Trinity, both monasteries with close links to the hierarchy of the orthodox church in Russia. Its administration is also more liberal than the very conservative monasteries that discourage tourism by banning photography and women in trousers. The day that we visited there were very few other visitors which is just as we like it.