Orthodox churches in the planning structure of cities in Western Siberia (Tyumen, Tomsk, Omsk, Barnaul) (1st half of XVIII - beginning of XX centuries)

The investigation’s topicality is predetermined by a modern state of churches and church areas in the studied cities. Most of them were ruined in the Soviet period. It led to distortion of church areas and their architectural dominants, and transformation of the original appearance and “interior” space of the cities (because of the loss of architectural dominants). The skylines of towns, as well as a character of their river panoramas in the historical zone were changed. The composition of church areas of four historical Siberian cities, namely Tyumen, Tomsk, Omsk, and Barnaul is specified and reduced to a system. The peculiar features of arranging the church areas in the planning structure of Tyumen, Tomsk, Omsk and Barnaul are presented. The stages of forming church areas are determined. The paper presents the comparison table, which helps to determine compositional special features of church areas of each examined city in comparison with other three towns.