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Tuesday, October 9, 2007

Goritsy and the Resurrection Convent

This house, of course, being purple, was my absolute favorite!

A rowan (Mountain Ash) tree, loaded with fruit

Resurrection Convent, founded in 1544 by Princess Yefronsiniya, wife of Ivan the Terrible's youngest son. She was among a group plotting to assassinate Ivan and replace him with her son, Vladimir. When Ivan uncovered the plot in 1563, Yefronsiniya was exiled to the convent she'd founded and her son was executed in Moscow. Suspecting she might be bored at the Convent, she brought along her servants and embroidery workshop, but these did not help, and she began constant appeals to Ivan to pardon and release her. He became fed up with these pleas, sent word to the Convent that she was to be freed, sent a ship to pick her up, in which she was taken to the middle of the river and drowned! Not nice to annoy Ivan the Terrible...



1 comment:

Nona said...

Um. The moral of the story is "be circumspect"?