The great churches of
Kievan Rus', built after the
adoption of Christianity by the people of Rus' in 988, were the first examples of monumental architecture in the
East Slavic lands. The architectural style of the Kievan state, which quickly established itself, was strongly influenced by
Byzantine architecture. Early
Eastern Orthodox churches were mainly made of wood, with the simplest form of church becoming known as a
cell church. Major
cathedrals often featured scores of small
domes, which led some
art historians to take this as an indication of what the pagan Slavic temples should have looked like. The 10th-century
Church of the Tithes in
Kiev was the first cult building to be made of stone. The earliest Kievan churches were built and decorated with
frescoes and
mosaics by Byzantine masters. Another example of an early church of Kievan Rus' was the
Saint Sophia Cathedral in Kiev (1037), built by
Yaroslav the Wise. Much of its exterior has been altered with time, extending over the area and eventually acquiring 25 domes. The
Saint Sophia Cathedral in Novgorod (10451050), expressed a new style that exerted a strong influence on
Russian church architecture. Its austere thick walls, small narrow windows, and helmeted
cupolas have much in common with the
Romanesque architecture of Western Europe. Even further departure from Byzantine models is evident in sudivision cceeding cathedrals of
Novgorod: St Nicholas's (1113), St Anthony's (11171119), and St George's (1119). Along with cathedrals, of note was the architecture of monasteries of these times. The 12th–13th centuries were the period of
feudal of Kievan Rus into princedoms which were in nearly permanent feud, with multiplication of cathedrals in emerging princedoms and courts of local princes (
knyazes). (1165), one of the most famous Russian medieval churches By the end of the 12th century, the divide of the country was final and new centres of power took the Kievan style and adopted it to their traditions. In the northern principality of
Vladimir-Suzdal the local churches were built of white stone. The Suzdal style is also known as
white-stone architecture (""). The first white-stone church was the
St. Boris and Gleb Church commissioned by
Yuri Dolgoruky, a church-fortress in
Kideksha near Suzdal, at the supposed place of the stay of knyazes Boris and Gleb on their pilgrimage to Kiev. The white-stone churches mark the highest point of pre-
Mongolian Rus' architecture. The most important churches in
Vladimir are the
Assumption Cathedral (built 11581160, enlarged 11851198, frescoes completed in 1408) and
Cathedral of Saint Demetrius (built 11941197). In the western splinter of
Kingdom of Galicia-Volhynia churches in a traditional Kievan style were built for some time, but eventually the style began to drift towards Central European Romanesque tradition. The white stone masonry of
Galician school of architecture was likely the inspiration of the development of a similar style in Vladimir-Suzdal. Celebrated as these structures are, the contemporaries were even more impressed by churches of Southern Rus', particularly the
Svirskaya Church of
Smolensk (11911194). As southern structures were either ruined or rebuilt, restoration of their original outlook has been a source of contention between art historians. The most memorable reconstruction is the
Piatnytska Church (11961199) in
Chernigov (modern Chernihiv, Ukraine), by
Peter Baranovsky. ==Secular architecture==