Saint Sophia Cathedral, Veliky Novgorod

The Cathedral of Holy Wisdom inside the Novgorod kremlin is among the oldest buildings in Russia still used for its original purpose. It was built between 1045 and 1050 by Prince Vladimir of Novgorod, son of Yaroslav the Wise, and Bishop Luka Zhidiata, replacing a wooden cathedral, and rises about 38 metres to a golden central dome. Like its namesake in Kyiv, it was dedicated to Holy Wisdom in imitation of Hagia Sophia in Constantinople, but the Novgorod builders produced something very different: thick, nearly bare walls, narrow windows and a strongly vertical mass that historians compare to Western Romanesque. One scholar's comparison is often quoted: the Kyiv church is a bride, the Novgorod one a warrior.

For four centuries the cathedral was the symbol of the Novgorod Republic, a merchant state that stretched from the Baltic towards the Urals. Chronicles record the citizens declaring that where Holy Wisdom is, there is Novgorod. The church was the burial place of princes, mayors and prelates, beginning with Vladimir himself in 1052, and it was looted by Ivan the Terrible's men in the 1570s when Moscow crushed the city's independence. It survived the German occupation in the Second World War, though its domes were badly damaged; the cross from the main dome was taken to Spain and returned only in 2004.

The thing not to miss is on the west front: the bronze Magdeburg Gates, a pair of 12th-century Romanesque doors covered in relief panels of biblical scenes and figures, made by Magdeburg craftsmen for the cathedral of Płock in Poland and brought to Novgorod by the late 15th century. Inside, look for the icon of Our Lady of the Sign, which tradition credits with saving the city from a Suzdalian siege in 1169, and for the fragments of early frescoes, including a figure of Constantine and Helena near the south entrance thought to date from the church's consecration. The Soviet state ran the cathedral as a museum; it was returned to the Church in 1991. It forms part of the World Heritage listing of the historic monuments of Novgorod.

Getting there

The cathedral stands in the kremlin in the centre of Veliky Novgorod, about 0.3 km from the city centre. Most visitors arrive from Saint Petersburg, about 190 km to the north: Lastochka trains from the Moskovsky station take about three to four hours. Pulkovo Airport (LED) in Saint Petersburg, about 154 km away, is the practical airport.