15/24: Valery Sirovsky - Cathedral_City

Valeriy Sirovskiy, born in 1939, is an artist. In 1965 he graduated from the Institute of Foreign Languages. From 1965 to 1978 he worked at Mosfilm as an assistant director and actor in the film Red Tent, and in other films with Kalatozov, Ryazanov and Daneliya. His photos, drawings, articles and cartoons have been published in Decorative Art of the USSR, Ogonyok and similar periodicals.

In 1973 he borrowed a camera from an Italian actor friend, and over two days he shot 700 pictures in a 'graveyard' of Italian dolls that had been thrown out (this collection of dolls has long since ceased to exist). From that time he took no more photographs. Then in 2000 he returned to photography "to record on film interests that I have pursued throughout my life." Last year he arranged personal exhibitions in the UNION Gallery (Fotobiennale-2000), Moscow; the Municipal Gallery in Como, Italy; AD Studio d'Arte, Padua; Centro Culturale Q16, Venice; Ruga Rialto, Venice; the Neopaleo Gallery, Venice-Mestre; the Municipal Museum, Gus Khrustalniy; in 2001 he took part in the Forum of Art Initiatives "The Art of Tourism" at the New Manezh, Moscow, and Materia Prima (49 Venice Bienniale), the Monasteries of Salesiani Don Bosco and San Giorgio.

"In the city centre there stands a church. It was built as the tallest building in the city. Several times the church has been burnt, robbed, rebuilt, repaired and restored, and faced the risk of total destruction. The city is a model of the church.

It is described as an architectural miracle, a fabulous 'heavenly city,' a work which concentrates in itself not only the highest attainments of that epoch's architectural thought, but also, as it were, defines the character of the whole of Russian architecture right up to the 18th century: "the church was erected in stone, wholly amazing with its different images and many transformations."

It is said that the conception of the church was based on the idea of the 'church-city' or 'heavenly Jerusalem'. The similarity of its design to those of the 'ideal cities' of the Renaissance has been remarked on. There is a suggestion that German master craftsmen took part in its construction. It is known that all the decorative paintings which appeared both inside and outside the church much later were done by Russian painters. The church symbolized 'the dwellings of the righteous' in which abide the souls of the brave. This architecture of heavenly mansions was made, decorated and is rendered habitable by worldly people. The church is a model of the town. (Yu. Avvakumov)