Nikilo-Kremlyovskaya Church

One of the churches built in honor of Nicholas the Wonderworker is situated in the centre of town Vladimir, on ulitsa Bolshaya Moskovskaya. South of the church there is a square and a monument to Alexander Nevsky, whose entering Vladimir and becoming the great prince in 1252 was a big event. The prince was festively met by clerical establishment headed by the metropolitan, the prince’s mother Fedosya, town’s noblemen and folk. The thirst thing to do was to rebuild the town from the ashes and ruins. It was done by efforts of craftsmen and peasants . In 1256 the prince had to defend north-western borders. He led an uneasy winter campaign of vladimir-suzdal army against the Swedes and the Danes and succeeded. West of the church there is a wall of the Nativity Monastery. The church stands on a place where the town’s acropolis used to be. In Russian acropolis is called “kreml’”, so this is where the churches name comes from - Nikolo-Kremlyovskaya . An ancient buildings register of the town’s acropolis says that a wooden Nicolas church had been standing here since 1626, but in 1719 it was destroyed in a fire. In 1761 — 1769 a new stone church with an aisle and a four-layered campanile was built. Among antiquities of the Nikolo-Kremlyovskaya church there are antique icons such as Our Saviour, Our Lady of Kazan, the wonder-working icon of Saint Nicholas painted on a plane-tree wood plank. At present it is not a functioning church, a public library and a planetarium are situated inside it.

The planetarium was opened in 1962 on the initiative of the town administration. It was opened to the first space flight anniversary and became the 41st planetarium in the USSR. Its main purpose was and is to popularize present-day science achievements , first of all of astronomy and cosmonautics.

Miniatures of the first three man-made satellites , globes of the Earth and the Moon were placed in foyer a Sikhote Alin meteorite shard, visual aids. In 1970s a Foucault pendulum was also placed here. The details for it were produced by a local plant. In 1990s the diorama “Energia-Buran spaceship take-off”, which was the only one in Russia, was placed here. On the dome in the planetarium’s circular hall one can see a picture of sky of stars, planets, meteoric shower. A new planetarium building has been built in the central park and the planetarium is going to move there when the equipment is purchased.

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