Reflection Hunters Contest ~ Novodevichy Monastery (5pics)

This is my application for the contest Reflection Hunters Contest ~ Round 229 🎺 Announcement 🎺! by @olgavita

Novodevichy Monastery

Yes, I am not at home again, but walking around Moscow. I came to visit my daughter again and this is not the last trip this year, at least another one is planned in September.
This time, my wife was with me on the trip. She said she wanted to visit Vorobyovy Gory, but our daughter suggested a walk in Luzhniki. I immediately realized that it would not be an easy walk, but a long one. After the Luzhniki Stadium, we decided to go to the park in front of the Novodevichy Monastery. I was amazed by the height of the monastery wall!

This monastery was founded by Grand Duke Vasily III on May 13, 1524, in gratitude for the capture of Smolensk.
Those were interesting times. Tsars built monasteries, cathedrals, and churches in honor of capturing another city or territory.
The history of this monastery is rich; many kings and conquerors were at these walls, and many women were in this kind of prison. It is known that women did not always become nuns of their own free will.
By the way, Peter I's elder sister, Sophia Alekseevna, was imprisoned in this monastery. After the failure of the conspiracy against Peter I and the removal from power, the princess was forcibly tonsured into a nun and imprisoned in the Novodevichy Monastery, where Sophia spent the rest of her life.

But I was interested in the walls themselves. They were modeled after the Moscow Kremlin and had to withstand a long siege.

The stone walls with towers, crowns, loopholes, and wide galleries for shooters around the monastery were erected on the instructions of Boris Godunov. The length of the fortress wall was about 1 kilometer, height - 13 meters, thickness - 3 meters. The towers of the fortress wall of the monastery differ from the usual towers of similar walls.
On the one hand, the monastery was a fortress to protect against potential enemies on the way to the Kremlin, but on the other hand, it was a convent. It is difficult to understand how the two diverse purposes of the monastery got along, but this is already a fait accompli.

Next to the monastery, there is a cemetery, which is surrounded by a red brick wall, which is much lower than the monastery wall. But that's another story.

I thought that we would take a walk in the park along the pond and then enter the territory of the monastery itself, but my daughter suggested that we go to the cemetery. I think that on my next trip to Moscow, I will go for a walk to this place alone.