Andrey L. Batalov

State Institute of Art Studies, Moscow, Russia

E-mail: batal-bei@yandex.ru

Keywords: arabesque, eastern influence, stone carving, trade, architecture, Crimea, Golden Horde, Muscovy.

The history of the ties between the Old Russian artistic culture and the East (“the issue of eastern influence”) reflected in the Old Russian applied and decorative art, book ornamentation and architecture of architechture of the second half of the 14th – the first half of the 15th century is particularly topical. The ornamentation of the carved belts that decorated the facades of the churches with four internal piers built by the Grand Duke Vasily Dmitrievich and his brother Yuri Dmitrievich was based on rapport orders showing direct analogies not only in Asia Minor but also in the Armenian and Tatar buildings in the Crimea of the 14th and the first half of the 15th century. The active trade conducted by the Moscow merchants (“guests of Surozh”) on the Black Sea coast allows assuming the translation of motifs through construction craftsmen who were invited by the merchants to Russia, just as Armenian merchants brought masters from the Crimea to Lviv.

DOI: 10.31857/S086960630001657-1