History and Culture: Exhibition, devoted to the 300th anniversary of the consecration of the Gostino-Nikolayevskaya Church, opened as part of the "Memories of the Temple" series in Astrakhan

The Museum of Astrakhan Culture launched an exhibition from the "Memories of the Temple'' series about the lost temples of the Astrakhan Eparchy. The ninth exhibition in the cycle is devoted to the Gostino-Nikolayevskaya Church, destroyed in the 1970s.

The exhibition marks the 300th anniversary of the consecration of the church. It was the second temple built in the Bely (White) City. Its history remembers many prominent people associated with the merchant city of the Lower Volga. For example, in the XIX century, Ilya Ulyanov was baptized in this church, and priest Nikolai Livanov, the godfather of Vladimir Lenin, was its pastor for some time.

Several years ago, the branch of the museum-reserve held an exhibition about this temple. Since then, the collection of Sergei Stepanov, the initiator of the exhibition project, has acquired new unique photographs with views of the temple.

So, the collector got several previously unknown photographs, which captured the church demolition by a ball ram in 1971 and pictures of its further disassembling. Also, views of Astrakhan in the 1920s entered the collection. They show the Gostino-Nikolayevskaya Church from different points: views of the church from R. Luxemburg Street (now Nikolskaya Street), from the bell tower of the Astrakhan Kremlin (1926) and other rare photographs.

The exhibition features pictures from the private archive of the local writer Alexander Markov, depicting the painting of the Church walls, and photographs from Alexander Minaev's archive. Especially for the exhibition, Sergei Stepanov ordered the Astrakhan artist Nadezhda Yenaleeva to paint the lost Gostino-Nikolayevskaya church. Besides, the exposition includes fragments from registers of births, marriage certificates given by the priests of the Gostino-Nikolayevskaya Church, papers of 1903 and other materials.

The exhibition at the Museum of Astrakhan Culture will run until September 15.