Pre-revolutionary Arkhangelsk did not have large museums. All significant exhibits and shrines of the city were kept in the spiritual center of the city - the Holy Trinity Cathedral. However, with the advent of Soviet power, almost all the churches and monasteries of Arkhangelsk were plundered, some of them were demolished. The same fate befell the most beautiful cathedral in Russia, according to the Emperor Alexander I. The cathedral was plundered and demolished in 1929. Some of the relics stored in it are exhibited in museums in Russia and the world, and some have been lost without a trace. In this article we will try to trace the history of one of the most important relics of the city, which was kept in a place of honor in the Holy Trinity Cathedral, and was revered not only by residents and guests of the city, but also by members of the imperial family - the Peter's Cross.
And so, we will begin our story with a short history course. On May 18, 1694, Tsar Peter Alekseevich, the future Emperor Peter I, came to Arkhangelsk for the second time. From Arkhangelsk, the tsar, together with the boyars and the Arkhangelsk Archbishop Athanasius, on the yacht "St. Peter" on May 30 went to the Solovetsky monastery. On June 1, 1694, when the yacht was in the Unskaya Bay of the White Sea, a strong storm arose. Only thanks to the experience of the helmsman - the Nyukhon peasant Antipa Timofeevich Panov, the yacht "Saint Peter", having safely overcome the Unskie horns dangerous for navigation, on June 2, moored to the shore next to the Pertominsky monastery. In memory of his salvation, Peter made a three-meter wooden cross with his own hand and installed it in the place where he went ashore. According to legend, the cross had an inscription in Dutch "DAT KRUUS MAKEN KAPTEIN PITER VAN A CHR. 1694. "(This Cross was set, Captain Peter, in the summer of Christ 1694.) And in the wooden Pertomin monastery, founded in 1599, Peter ordered to build stone cells and a fence with a corner tower.
It was in Pertominsk, on the shores of the White Sea, that the history of the Peter's Cross began. For the first decades, it was located in the place where Peter installed it. Later, at the end of the 18th century, it was transferred to the Assumption Church of the Pertomin Monastery. In total, the cross was in Pertominsk for 111 years. In April 1805, the cross, erected by Peter, was transported to the Kegostrovsky church with the highest permission of Emperor Alexander I, but he did not stay there. And in the summer of 1805 it was transferred to the Holy Trinity Cathedral in Arkhangelsk. A place of honor was prepared for the cross in the cathedral - it was located in the main temple, next to one of the altars at the southern wall, under a special gilded canopy supported by four columns. The history of the creation of the cross and its transfer to Arkhangelsk in 1805 was written on shields,held by two angels, carved from wood to human height.
Everything that Peter touched was considered miraculous, so by the beginning of the 20th century, the bottom of the cross was gnawed to such an extent that the inscription made by Peter was impossible to read. Only a few letters were visible.
Peter's cross in the Holy Trinity Cathedral.
In 1922, the Soviet Government issued a decree on the destruction of all symbols of the tsarist power. The Peter's cross at that time survived only by a miracle - it was saved by a metal plate on the reverse side, made by the traveler Peter Chelishchev, who in 1791 visited the Pertomin monastery. During the barbaric destruction of the Holy Trinity Cathedral in 1929, three canopies were transferred to the local history museum, along with one of them the cross of Peter. In the museum, the cross was dismantled and placed in a cold warehouse, where it lay until the 1980s. Only at the end of the Soviet regime was the authenticity of the cross proven by the senior researcher of the museum Vera Petrovna Solomina. Currently, the Peter's Cross occupies a central place in the permanent historical exposition of the Arkhangelsk Museum of Local Lore.
Peter's Cross in the Arkhangelsk Museum of Local Lore.
In the early 1990s, the Peter's Cross was installed in Pertominsk - a copy of the one in the local history museum. There he still stands.
Promotional video:
It seems that the history of the Peter's Cross can be put to a full stop here, but … At present, it is almost impossible to find out the truth, and it makes no sense. According to the memoirs of the Russian historian, paleographer, ethnographer, outstanding researcher of the Russian North Ksenia Petrovna Gemp, when the cathedral was destroyed, the Peter's Cross was burned by young people next to the ruins and danced around the fire …..
A copy of the Peter's Cross in Pertominsk.