Architecture of the Byzantine world

A large cistern in the abandoned Byzantine city of Akkale in Turkey, supposedly used to supply ships with fresh water.

An unusual for Bulgaria mix of the neo-Gothic with Neoclassicism - the memorial chapel-ossuary in Dryanovo monastery in honor of the April uprising heroes.

The building of a pre-revolutionary vodka factory in Ryazan, restored several years ago.

The swan song of pre-Ottoman Serbia, the Manasija Castle-Monastery, built by Lazar Hrebeljanović's son Stefan, is one of the last and yet the largest buildings of the Moravian style, being in the same time one of the most austere structures in it. Perhaps this is partly due to the many trials the church has endured - despite its seemingly good preservation, just 38 years after its completion, the monastery was burnt down by the Turks, and that was just the beginning of a long list of misfortunes.

The formation of the temple landscape of ancient Tbilisi, which began way back in the millennium before last, was completed only in our time with the construction of a cathedral worthy of the present capital - Tsminda Sameba, which literally translates as "Holy Trinity". The church became not only the largest in Georgia, but also one of the largest Orthodox cathedrals in the world, with its combination of modern technology and traditional style becoming a worthy representative of the generation of large-scale national temples, started by the Cathedral of Christ the Savior.

Let us begin with the story of loss, revival and, alas, new misfortune. At the Berestechko village inhabitants initiative, in memory of the fallen in the Battle of Berestechko, which was devastating for Khmelnitsky's uprising, and as a worthy response to the local Polish church, in the XX century, the construction of the Russo-Byzantine Cathedral of the Holy Trinity was started according to the project of the famous Tsarskoye Selo-born Kiev architect Vladimir Nikolaev. Sadly, it was not completed before the revolution. In 1914 the cathedral was damaged by the German army, later the Poles, who once again seized the land, forbade the construction of the church so that it could not overshadow the Catholic one, and the Soviets simply took it away. Only in our time, the shrine was finished according to the original project. However, the period of peace did not last long - already in 2019, schismatics has seized the temple by force, as their predecessors Uniates did centuries ago. #From_Tithes_to_Savoir

Today the Church celebrates one of the Twelve Great Feasts, the Day of the Holy Trinity, which in Orthodoxy is associated with Pentecost - the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the Apostles. Dedicated to the unity of the hypostases of the Lord and the transmission of the grace of the Holy Spirit to His disciples, and through them to all Christians, the feast can be considered the birthday of the Church. As always, in honour of this bright day, I have prepared a selection of the most beautiful and interesting churches dedicated to it.

Resembling an intricate casket, Luca Elefterescu's house in Ploiești, Romania, now occupied by a clock museum.

Nowadays modest, yet still beautiful, the streets of Mtskheta with the magnificent ancient cathedrals towering above them.

Provincial... Industrial Baroque - one of the buildings of the XVIII century Kachurov's silk factory in Yaroslavl, Russia.