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The Church of the Assumption on Myatchina (1179)

The church of the Annunciation on the Myachina is situated to the South of the city, half way to the Yuriev monastery. It was here that in 1170 the archbishop Ioann (Ilya) and his brother Gavril (Grigory) founded a monastery in commemoration of the magic rescue of the city by the holy icon "Virgin of the Sign."

In 1179 a stone church was constructed here in just 70 days. According to one of the legends, the construction work was finished only thanks to the Virgin's intervention: when the money allocated for the construction work came to an end, she sent a fantastic pure-bred horse with saddle bags full of gold and silver to the monastery gates

In 1189 the church was covered with paintings. The paintings were commissioned by the same Gavril (Gregory) who, after the death of his brother, became the archbishop of Novgorod.

The Church of the Annunciation is the oldest example of a smaller-sized Novgorod church. The upper parts of the walls, the vaults and the cupola collapsed in the 14th century but were immediately built up again. Of course, the wall paintings suffered greatly. Some remaining fragments have been cleaned and now allow us to acquire knowledge of still one more version of the Byzantine style in the monumental painting of the