The convent was founded at the beginning of the 16th century and was originally one of the most important “guards” of Moscow in the south-west. It is a beautiful architectural monument and one of the most famous convents of Russia. It was established by Basil III, the father of Ivan the Terrible, in commemoration of the reconquering of the old Russian town Smolensk by Russia in 1524 after the Lithuanian invasion. Over all these years the convent was often the venue of many dramatic historic events. Its walls remember Boris Godunov’s acception of the Russian Crown. From here started the expulsion of Polish invaders in 1612. Also here Peter the Great’s half-sister Sofia was forced to take the veil. In the oldest stone building, the Smolensk Cathedral, you can see it’s 16th century frescoes and fantastic icon display, made by the greatest tsars’ masters of that time. Since 1994 in the summer there are religious services in the Cathedral. On the convent’s grounds there are graves of the tsars’ relatives, members of boyars families, participants of Napoleonic War of 1812 as well as of writers and historians.
