Construction of the Annunciation Cathedral in Gorokhovets was completed in 1700. The cathedral's builder was Semyon Nikiforovich Ershov, a wealthy merchant and winemaker, a native of Gorokhovets. He personally financed the construction of several of the first stone churches and residential buildings in Gorokhovets between the 1670s and 1700s, buildings now considered gems of medieval provincial Russian architecture.
The Annunciation Cathedral in Gorokhovets is the last in a series of churches built with Ershov's money. It is radically different from its predecessors.
The cathedral's total height is approximately 35 meters. For a town whose population by 1700 was approximately 1,500, it was a grandiose structure. The cathedral has survived to this day exactly as Semyon Nikiforovich Ershov intended it to be—without any pretentious decoration. Stern, ascetically severe, powerful, majestic, and solemn. A truly monumental city cathedral—distinct from other religious buildings in Gorokhovets of that era.
The semicircles of the decorative zakomaras retain paintings dating back to the early 20th century—images faded by time. It is said that during the Soviet era, attempts were made to whitewash them repeatedly, but the paintings always reappeared. The cathedral's interior is also decorated—judging by the style, it dates back to the late 19th century. The paintings are, of course, in a terrible state, but the scenes are still quite visible in some places.
At the same time as the cathedral was being built, a 37-meter tented bell tower was being built nearby—all the Gorokhovets bell towers of that era resemble each other, like twin sisters.
In the 1710s (before the 27-year ban on all stone construction throughout Rus' had yet to be imposed), a miniature, "warm" Church of St. John the Baptist was added next to Yershov's Annunciation Cathedral. The patron was another Gorokhovets "millionaire," Ivan Shiryaev, who had purchased the Yershovs' factories and stone mansion in Gorokhovets—essentially their entire inheritance. It seems that the Church of St. John the Baptist (whose architectural style was already archaic by then—the age of ornamentation had become a thing of the past) was also built in memory of the Baptist.
Translated by Google •
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