Church of Our Lady of "The Omen" in Pushkin (Tsarskoie Selo)

Today I had a chance to visit the church of Our Lady of "The Omen" in Pushkin town, a small town  about 15 km away from St.Petersburg. Many times I went by this cozy pretty church which is a real adornment of Pushkin but did not pay attention on some interesting details which I would like to share with you. But at the beginning a few words about the church.

Building of the church of Our Lady of "The Omen" was started in 1734 ob direction of princess Elizaveta (daughter of Peter the Great) by architectures Ivan Blank and Mikhai Zemtsov. It has been entirely finished in 1747. There were 4 side chapels, the main was called in honor of Our Lady of "The Omen". During long history the church endured many minor reconstructions and in the end it changed greatly. I found a picture of the church which is dated by 1900 (it is on the left, on the right you can see how the church of Our Lady The Omen looks at present time.

It is necessary to say that in present time the church is active, each day religious services are hold there, it is opened since 8 am till 8 pm. But in Soviet time the church was not belonged to religious community, it was used as a storehouse, than as a workshop. They say that the church was repaired in 1961-1962 as a historical and a special memorial board was fixed on the front wall. On the left you can a picture of that board casted from icon. Pay your attention on the word which is cut down, it means "former" (on the right you can see detailed picture. Actually the church was returned back to religious community  in 1991 when the Soviet power felt down. The church was in very poor state, I visited it in early 1990-s, there was no floor, no plasterwork, just bear walls.

I have other old photo of the interior of the church that was taken in 1938 (in that time it was active, it was closed in 1941 when nazi invaded the town). Other photo was takes recently, the quality is not good because it is not allowed to take pictures during service and picture was taking without flash by little digital camera but you even in this picture you can clearly see how different the present interior is. The isostatic has been recently (a couple of years ago) reconstructed, I do not know what happened with it, in 1942 nazi plundered the church as all other historical and cultural objects of Pushkin town. I know only that the icon Our Lady the Omen (not the real one but its copy) was saved by relatives of the priest, then it was taken to Latvia, then after the war the icon was returned back to Russia though at the moment it is not in this church. Other thing was saved - the large crucifix (you can see it on the old black and white picture in the right side. Now this crucifix is again in the church, it is in bad condition, the restorer who worked with it on said that the crucifix would be conserved in that state in order people could see that they did.

The church in spite modern central heating is still heated as it was 250 year ago - by wood. There are 2 large stoves which are burned twice a day in cold frosty winter days. The building of the church has no basement and the floor is entirely on ground. Because of it there is extra humidity in the church so from time to time the ovens are burnt in autumn and spring time.