Ensemble of the Novodevichy Convent

Tsarinas, royal widows and disgraced noblewomen were sent behind the walls of Novodevichy Convent, making this south-western Moscow ensemble a silent witness to court intrigue — Peter the Great confined his sister Sophia here. Architecturally it is the finest flowering of Moscow Baroque, raised in the 16th and 17th centuries as one of the fortified monasteries ringing the city. Its celebrated cemetery holds generations of Russian notables. UNESCO inscribed the convent in 2004.