INTERNAL DECORATION
INTERNAL DECORATION
The St. Andrew’s Church in Kyiv is a world’s significance monument of history, architecture, and applied arts of the 18th century. It was constructed in 1747–1762 in Baroque style under the project of the prominent architect F.-B. Rastrelli. Among sacred monuments constructed under the project of the architect F.-B. Rastrelli, where interiors have preserved partially, and their initial finishing either has not survived at all, or has preserved in insignificant fragments, the St. Andrew’s Church has not only preserved its authentic architectural forms, the largest share of the exterior’s decoration, but has preserved its full interior which is a perfect example of the Orthodox church interior in Baroque style.
Joint work of the great architect F.-B. Rastrelli, handiwork and nature gave rise to the unique monument which, thanks to its composition’s lightness and refinement, harmonious fusion of all its parts into an entity, and connection with the environment became a masterpiece of the architecture of Baroque epoch and served as a consummate example for imitation when constructing religious edifices.
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The St. Andrew’s Church was built quite far from the Tsar’s Palace, on a steepy spur of the Starokyivsky plateau serving as a kind of pedestal for the edifice of the Church. On that place, according to the Tale of Bygone Years chronicle, the St. Andrew, the First-Called Apostle, the first Christianity preacher within the lands of the Kyivan Rus, fixed a cross and proclaimed appearance of a great city in the Ist century AD. Starting from the 11th century, one after another, here were constructed and with the time went to ruins wooden and stone churches in honor of the St. Andrew, the First-Called.
A great merit as to accomplishment of Rastrelli’s project belongs to the prominent Russian architect I. Michurin, who was sent from Moscow to Kyiv for direct supervision over the Tsar’s Palace and St. Andrew’s Church construction. Ivan