Donskoy Monastery

Donskoy Monastery is one of the most important men's monasteries of the Russian Orthodox Church, founded in 1591 by Boris Godunov to commemorate the repulse of a Crimean Tatar raid. It belongs to the belt of fortified monasteries around Moscow built to defend the city's southwestern approaches; the massive wall with twelve towers still stands. The grounds hold the Old Cathedral from the 16th century and the Naryshkin Baroque New Cathedral from the late 17th, with an impressive multi-tier iconostasis. In the 20th century the monastery served as a salvage yard for sculptures from demolished churches and so preserves high-relief fragments of the dynamited Cathedral of Christ the Saviour. Patriarch Tikhon, a Russian Orthodox saint, is buried here.