Churches of the Pskov School of Architecture by Wojciech Fedoruk
I visited Pskov at the end of my trip to Russia in 2016. I did not expect anything special in Pskov, although wanted to visit this city, with links to the history of Poland and famous city walls. And indeed, massive city walls were the first thing that was outstanding in Pskov. The second one was its kremlin (here called Krom) which was very small comparing to Russian standards (where usually kremlins are quite broad) but one of the niciest. But honestly I had mixed feelings with the historical center – although overall it was fine, it lacked integrity and historical buildings were mixed with much newer ones. It did not help that the weather was rainy that day and at the end I got all wet.
The third outstanding thing about Pskov was the abundance of churches. During my 18-day trip I had visited hundreds of tserkvas, including iconic ones in Vladimir, Suzdal, Yaroslavl and other cities of Golden Ring, but I remember the ones in Pskov were special. They were all white with really thick walls – I bet they can survive a nuclear attack. Contrary to most of Golden Ring tserkvas, covered in frescoes, the ones in Pskov had plain white walls and roofs. They reminded me the architecture of Russian Far North, e.g. Solovetsky Islands.
I am not sure how many of now inscribed churches I visited – not so many due to bad weather. I certainly visited Church Vasiliya na gorkie (completely renovated in 2016), neighboring church Nikoly so Usokhi (see photo) and Church of Saints Kosma and Damian. I have evidence of my visit to Church of St. Anastasia – also very old (XVth century) and similar in style to the inscribed churches but not proposed for inscription.