martha's vienna: St. Basil's Towers Revisited

Thursday, July 26, 2012

St. Basil's Towers Revisited

Moscow. A reader, Ernst, left a comment today on my post, "The Corridors of St. Basil's" saying he was interested in seeing more photos of the tower interiors of St. Basil's Cathedral and has not been able to find images elsewhere. While reviewing other photos I took in 2010, I thought some of the following might be useful. My recollection is that many of the tower interiors were rather plain but the corridors between them—and those walls, floors and ceilings—were fabulous...so I'm including some additional images of those as well. If you'd like to see more of this amazing building's interior, there's another post on this site, "Inside St. Basil's Towers."

As I recall, this ceiling was near the main entrance.

Another side of the entrance wall and ceiling.

I'm not sure which ceiling or tower this is but it was also near the main entrance.

There was quite a bit of restoration work going on in 2010 and I particularly liked the colors and textures of this floor as it was being restored.

This was one of the larger towers and is possibly the central, largest one. I apologize for not remembering exactly.

This old-fashioned wall decor is beautifully aged.

This drawing shows the layout of the towers.

Interesting wall, yes?

Some of the towers were encased in exterior walkways.

Another wall decoration sampler.

This is what the restorers have to work with—faint patterns and barely visible colors.

Another of those skinny passages, this one closed to visitors.

Another "before" area.

A beautiful and inspiring wall that I think was near the exit.

Would love to have the architecture to paint such a wall and ceiling. What fun!

Designs cover the spectrum in St. Basil's from simple to fanciful...

...and flowing to geometric.

This room was closed to visitors when we were there and it may have been the largest church. Note the difference between the elaborate wall and the unadorned tower.