Since the dawn of the 12th century and up to 1478 in which year it joined Moscow, Novgorod remained a Vetche Medieval Republic (governed by popular assembly), its architecture unusually rich in outstanding architectural monuments. Although less representative in their design of the

Novgorod style, the cathedrals of St Nicholas on the Lipna (1292), of the Dormition on the Volotovo Field (1352), of the Nativity in the Perynsky Hermitage (late 12th-early 13th century) marked the milestones of progress in creative architectural thinking of those architects whose credo, expressive and magnificent, was made clear in these works.

Full of intimacy and a special charm, these monuments constituted a significant stage in the shaping out of the classical Novgorod temple style dating back to the period of blossoming of architecture in the Vetche Novgorod Republic. The Cathedral of St Theodore Stratilates-on-Ruchei, an earlier but perfect example of this temple style, was an embodiment of the achievements of earlier Novgorod architects and a model for many later temples, each of them showing some individual architectural characteristics. Of the latter cathedrals the Cathedral of the Transfiguration on Ilyina Street (1374), with its unique frescoes executed by Theophanes the Greek, stands out for the fine decor of its facades.

The Novgorod period in art, with its monumental architecture and 11th-16th-century painting, was an important development in All-European culture, whose national idiom was dazzling, and the imagery superb in terms of being laconic, expressive and artistically complete.