The towers and the walls

The corner towers and the walls were erected, probably, at the same time as the St. John the Theologian church was built.

The total length of the walls of the Macarovka ensemble equals 270 meters and its height is 2,5 meters. The construction represents the posts with the spaces solidly tightened and covered with the two-side roofing. In the northern wall near the church of the Holy Sign there are small arch gates having a triangular pediment. The two corner towers have a cylindrical form and are placed on a high plinth (its diameter is about 6 meters and the height is 12 meters). They have small door and window openings from the internal side and are covered with the hip-roof (nowadays the roof is covered with the wooden ploughshare).

The walls fulfill the compositional function: they indicate the border of the space composition and the towers fix its corners. Due to the five vertical lines from the below the five-cornered form of the pogost plan is read. The towers of Macarovka monastery repeat in the reduced scale the stoned fortress towers of the 16th century, what featured the monastery architecture. The low wall doesn’t hide the church volumes. Its clear line represents kind of pedestal tearing the architecture away from the “wrong” nature relief.

The wall and the towers were disassembled in 1930s and restored in 1972.