This church (dedicated to the Russian St. Nikolai, not the earlier Saint of Santa Claus fame) contains some of the most impressive frescoes in Yaroslavl. In 1640 a team of 20 painters, at the behest of a rich local merchant, worked for a year to cover the entire interior with frescoes telling stories from the saint’s life. In 1751 a baroque iconostasis painted by Fyodor Volkov (a local actor and founder of Russia’s first theatre) was installed here too. The whole splendid interior of the church is only open to the public from May through October.
