The winter church, dedicated to St Michael, is the chapel of Honour of St Theodore of Persia and was built in the eighteenth century only. In addition to a much venerated ikon of the virgin, painted in 1739, there is preserved one of the greatest antiquities of Moscow--a bas relief representing St George the Conqueror (Pobiedonostzev), the head uncovered, which originally was one of the decorations of the Redeemer Gate near by. It was transferred thence to the Church of St George, which was destroyed by the fire of 1737, a conflagration that threatened the convent also, but was stayed by the miraculous ikon of the Virgin of Kazan, now placed in the adjoining new church of St Catherine the Martyr. This is a modern building on the site of a fine old church of the seventeenth century, and of a Russified-Gothic style serves to show, from an artistic point of view, how disastrous is the attempt to combine native designs with those of the west. On the ground floor of the western range of buildings are the ovens, etc., where the Holy Bread is prepared, and the nuns of the convent are celebrated throughout Russia for the excellence of their work with the needle and brush, their copies of the ikons of these churches being in particular request. The monasteries outside the Kremlin have much the character of small fortified towns, and are the stronger and, architecturally, the more interesting the greater the distance at which they are situated from the town. To visit them, drive out to the Simonov--four miles from the centre of the town--and pass the Krutitski Vorot and the Novo Spasski; the Spasso-Andronievski and the Pokrovski on the return. On the south side of the river to the Danilovski and the Donskoi; to the west the Zachatievski and Novo Devichi. The others, of minor interest are:--Monasteries of St Nicholas, Epiphany, Znamenski, Petrovski, Srietenka, and Alexis; Convents: St Nikita, Rojdestvenka, and Strastnoi. SIMONOV MONASTERY