The cells are mean, and the low plain façade not unlike those of English alms-houses of the eighteenth century. It was in this nunnery that Maria Mniszek was housed prior to her marriage with the false Dmitri, and here, too, that Maria Nagoi was forced to recognise the same impostor as her own murdered son. The Cathedral of the Ascension, like that of St Michael in the Chudov, is of a primitive type, preserving many of the characteristics of the original building erected by the Tsar Vasili Ivanovich in 1518; the five domes have not, however, the common bulbous cupolas, these resemble inverted cups--an original type. The interior has the customary four pillars supporting the central dome; there is an ikonostas with four tiers reaching to the arched roof. Of the sacred pictures the most remarkable are that of the Virgin and that of the Ascension; there is also a curious one in the north chapel dedicated to Mary the Mother of the Afflicted. The tombs of the Grand Duchesses are arranged along the frescoed walls, north, west and south; some are of the white stone used in the earliest buildings in Moscow, others of brick; formerly the portraits of those interred were painted on the walls over their tombs, now many are covered with splendidly worked palls of native design. The remains of Eudoxia (St Euphrosina) are in a modern shrine of silver, replacing that taken by the French; on the right, near the south wall, is the tomb of another Eudoxia (Shtrchnev), the wife of Mikhail Theodorovich; then come the tombs of the Miloslavski and Naryshkin, wives of his son the Tsar Alexis, and the last tomb of all is that of another Eudoxia, the much tortured first wife of Peter the Great. Four of the six, or more, wives of Ivan the Terrible also lie here. In the sacristy among many rich relics are two exquisitely decorated copies of the gospels; the enamel work and enrichment with gems is the most characteristic of the Russian art handicrafts. Not less excellent are the two golden processional crucifixes presented by the Tsar Michael. Such is the summer church of the convent, to which there is a grand ceremonial procession on Palm Sunday, and one on the second Sunday after Trinity to commemorate the great fire of 1737.