spaso-evfimiyev monastery museum complex

这里几乎是小镇的最北端了，这座教堂的对面就是斯巴索—叶夫菲米修道院，整座修道院坚固如城堡，内有几座教堂，最著名的是圣母诞生教堂教堂内部的水彩壁画我们还有幸聆听到男修道士吟唱圣歌。修道院还有一些历史展览，可以大都是俄语的，真心看不懂…从修道院出来，绕过红色的围墙

The monastery is not in use but is being utilised as a museum site. The grounds are very attractive and the way the frescos in the church are displayed point to the difference between the soft colours and spiritual faces of the 17th century frescos and the bright, almost harsh colours and secular faces of the 19th century renovations, although the compositions of the original frescos were retained. The hourly bell-ringing by one man controlling a bank of bells was interesting and enjoyable. An unexpected highlight was the tasty and very reasonable lunch menu available in the café of the monastery.

There is really one of the best sights in Suzdal. It lacks information in English though. Unfortunately the administration does not allow private tour-guides. They could add audio tour in English like in Tretyakov Gallery...

Inside monastery, tomb of Dmitry Pozarsky you can see. You see the famous bronze statue of two warriors in front of Saint Basil's cathedral in Red square in Moscow. He is the noble man in this statue.This monastery was built in 14th century with woods and reconstructed masonry in 16-17 centuries. Inside of Spaso-preobrazenskiy sabor, 17th century presco painter Gury Nikitin and Sila Sabin's paintings are remained. Very bright colored paintings are covered everywhere. If you are on time, you can have chance to listen duet's hymns. They sing songs without microphone. Really fantastic and precious experiences. In the museum, you can see world famous Jesus with golden threads, golden plate covered icons. On every hour, two men perform bells ring like a music for 5 minutes. Also there is medical plants garden, this monastery was famous before giving good medicines to patients. There is jail inside monastery. Monks were there long ago, Bolseviky were there before revolution, and persons who sent Bolseviks to prison were there after revolution. It's the must see place in Suzdal. It's not the Suzdal kremlin.

On the north end of Suzdal, this ancient monastery has been a place of prayer, a fortress, a prison and a museum in its history. Founded by St. Euthymius and dedicated to Christ the Savior, it was renamed after Euthymius was canonized to have the double dedication to Christ and to the sainted founder. It is surrounded by massive walls not only to define the monastic perimeter but to help defend the northern approaches to the town. It began to function as a prison while still a monastery. Clergy who got in trouble with either civil or canon law, or who annoyed the bishop enough to warrant removal from a parish could find themselves locked up here. They lived a spartan existence following a monastic regime of prayer. Later, the Tsars would sometimes exile a high profile secular prisoner to this place After the Soviets closed the monastery, they used it to house political prisoners, then, Italian POW's and after WWII juvenile delinquents. In its current function as a museum, it highlights all the aspects of its complex history. One of the highlights of a visit is the every hour ringing of the bells. One ringer is connected to a number of bells by ropes. Thus, one person can play many ringing patterns from one spot. Watching the person play has the effect of seeing a curious ballet accompanied by bells. It is a wonderful place to visit.

English speakers should buy the Suzdal book to explain this site and others in the area. Don't miss the hour bell ringing.

Although the outside of this monastery is nothing to sneer at it is the interior that takes your breath away. Admittedly much of the current interior is, or is being, restored nonetheless the golds, the blues and other colours of the frescoes are very impressive and are in the style of the 17th century work. The prison section of the monastery has been converted to a small museum.

A great walk through a piece of Russian history. Well kept grounds and a highlight is listening to the bell ringer in the tower. How often do you experience something like that in this era?

1st of all. This is not a Suzdal Kremlin! :) Many think that it is. There is a lack of english infrastructure, so you must come there with someone who can help you understand all and translate into your language. In the begining it was wooden, but those building are not present now. Fresco on the fronts of main cathedral is from 16 century. There is a tomb (now there is a cross) of the Dmitriy Pozharskij near the eastern front of the building. You can be interested in the going up to the bell tower. In defined hours there is an bell-player and if you buy a ticket you can going up and see and listen this amazing sound near by! Also they give very interesting info about bells (in russian), and! if you ask a name of lector and he is Valerij Garanin, you can ask him to play on the gusli! He is amazing man!And if you have seen the film "Tsar" it filmed here too

I was very excited to see the monastery, though a bit taken aback by some of the negative reviews which I read the evening before I visited. Several of my guidebooks called this the top attraction in Suzdal, but with only two of the ten museums open and almost no English signage, I found it mostly a waste of time. Really a shame since the grounds are gorgeous. Maybe I just hit the place on a bad day, but there was no one or no signage to tell me otherwise. A shame that there's so little English signage in Russia. Really, how many of us are going to learn to speak Russian for what amounts to a couple weeks on vacation here? I'm not a tour bus kind of guy, so I was mostly reliant on guidebooks and places like this only get a page or two, and not as much detail as I'd like. Too bad the folks who run these historical sites don't join forces with local English teachers and print out a two-sided page for those who don't speak Russian. A good example of how to do this would be to follow the model of various churches in the Moscow Kremlin. One highlight that should not be missed is the hourly playing of the bells. A man stands in the tower and with various ropes and pedals plays 11 bells of various sizes and he does it with a flourish. I'll bet the guy could knock off some great contemporary tunes if the management would let him. He got a nice round of applause from the couple dozen of us who witnessed his performance and he took a bow, waved and left his stage in the sky. Very cool.

Every time a monastery or a church is turned into a museum it loses most – or all – of its purpose, spirit and charm. Such is the case with this place, despite the hourly bell concerts. A scattering of renovated buildings on a rather large walled territory feels like a routine tourist attraction.The pricing system is idiotic: each building houses an exhibit with an oblique title, priced at 70 rubles each. There is no way to buy tickets after you get to the building of interest, so basically you are pushed to buy an all-inclusive ticket (350 rubles) at the front gate. Considering that none of the original decor is in place, only the structures, this is steep.

Wonderful monastery complex in Lenin Street in Suzdal. Well-restored with interesting buildings and displays. Every hour a bell-ringer hand rings the bells at the top of the belfry (outside so everyone can see this unique method of bell-ringing).

We visited this place during end of winters. Entire place was covered with snow and that was a charm in itself. But like it happens in Russia, there were quite less visitors during winters making it little more convenient in pile of snow. Yes, there is fee for the attraction....but there is different prices for visiting various places and there is obviously a discounted but all-in cost ticket including all attractions. One can choose depending upon the time available and buy tickets accordingly. We preferred only tickets for church as we have seen other museums in detail before this. Nice church and with choirs going on inside, it presented a very holy atmosphere. We enjoyed taking pics inside. I am sure this place would be worth lot more during summers as winter harshness takes out all motivation out of visitors.

The visit to the monastery however was very expensive at 300 – they don’t accept foreign student cards. Frustrating dual pricing, you pay more but you get less since the only thing they translated in English are all the ‘do not …’ signs, but none of the information about the collection on display. A real pity, since it seems very interesting.

The core of the Euthimiev monastery is Spaso-Preobrazhensky cathedral, which was built in 1594. While standing inside this church there was a choir singing which gave it a very dreamy feeling. The interior of the cathedral has no paintings or stained glass, it is just plan white stone walls all around. Connected to the white stoned wall cathedral is an art museum which is worth a visit