The collection of the Bryansk State Museum of Local Lore boasts a miniature scale model of an old Russian Church in the town of Vshchizh. This ancient town deserved its first mention in the Russian chronicles in 1142. Yet, its precise location was determined much later by historian Nikolay Karamzin when he was written by a landlord Zinoviev. The message read as follows:
Scale model of the Vshchizh Church
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Scale model of the Vshchizh Church
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‘Vshchizh, as the lore has it, used to be a special village within the apanage principality. To our day, the neighborhood is plentiful in traces of earthworks, and some find large granite crosses (on burial mounts), quite exquisitely made ones. No-one knows who those were erected by and when. I am to note that there is no granite to be found in our locality. There are a lot of burial mounts out in the fields; one of them in the very middle of the village is filled with ancient masonwork: the story goes that there used to be a church. They also disinter quite a few copper crosses, icons, iron-cast horse harnesses and other things’.
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Vshchizh sat on the bank of the river Desna, some 50 kilometers to the north-west of Bryansk. In the X-XII cc., it was a minor fortress within the boundaries of the Chernigov principality. The fortress was a home to soldiers, artisans, and tradesmen.
Painting ‘Ancient Town of Vshchizh’. Artist: Evgeniy Konkov. Source: www.mglin-krai.ru
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The Vshchizh Church was the first masonry church to appear in the lands around Bryansk. Its size and layout resembled that of the Church of the Intercession on the Nerl erected in 1164 to the order of Duke Andrey Bogolubsky. The high rectangular building was crowned with a helmet-shaped dome conventional for pre-Mongolian Russian churches.
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In 1238, Vshchizh was besieged by the Tatars. They leveled the place to the ground, including the church where locals tried to hide from the attackers. After that, Vshchizh never recovered.
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The first diggings in the area were in the 1840’s. They were arranged by Vera Zinovieva-Fomina, a landlady from Bryansk. The diggings under her guidance revealed remains of masonry, fragments of church murals, and some vessels.
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“During the diggings on the church grounds, there were found: 2 copper candle holders, copper ornaments with Slavic writings, which, judging by their positioning when found, belong to the northern and the southern altar gates. A small chandelier, icon pendants, a folding bliss crucifix and many versatile iron and lead items. All that was delivered by my husband to the Moscow Archaeological Society, whereof he is a member, for review…”
From Vera Zinovieva-Fomina’s letter to Emperor Alexander II
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In 1866, the landlady approached the Emperor with a petition for the reconstruction of the Vshchizh Church. Yet, her petition was denied ‘on the grounds of both capital scarcity and the numerousness of construction needs to be satisfied’.
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The scale model in the Museum’s collection is made by Vladimir Alekseev, a historian and sculptor from Bryansk. It was the first scale model of pre-Mongolian architecture in the collection “Bryansk Antiquities”.
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Bryansk State Regional Ethnography Museum
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Scale model of the Vshchizh Church
Creation period
Late XII c
Collection
Exhibition
3
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