Nikolay Mukhin

His main works are the frescos of the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in Moscow and his principal work on the mosaics in the Church of Saint Sava in Belgrade, which after completion will form the biggest mosaic ensemble ever executed. He also holds Serbian citizenship.

Mukhin was born on 13 June 1955 in Kostroma, USSR. From 1970 he lived in Yaroslavl. He was educated from 1974 at the Yaroslavl art school. In 1985 he became member of the Artists' Union of the USSR. He enrolled in studies at the Moscow Art Institute at the Russian Academy of Arts in Moscow from 2000–2005, where he received his master's degree in 2008. After he finished the frescoes at the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in Moscow with Yevgeny Nikolayevich Maksimov (Евгений Николаевич Максимов, *1948), he won the competition for the decoration of the Saint Sava Church in Belgrade in 2014.

Mukhin visited the Temple of Saint Sava for the first time 1994 in official company of Patriarch Alexy II of Moscow who held service with Patriarch Pavle. Mukhin later worked in Serbia in various church decorations from 2002. Prior to Saint Sava, his main work in Serbia was the decoration of the church in Ub (Crkva Vasnesenja Hrista) which had to be built anew after an earthquake shook the Kolubara basin in 1998 and where he worked from 2003. He then was a member of the board of cultural advisors to Putin, whom he had known since the early 2000s. He explained that in 1994 his first idea came to decorate Saint Sava. As the church encloses an immense space, he stated that for him a golden decoration was the only possibility and that it signified the Transfiguration of Jesus. His main task, he said, was to make the church interior shine from its golden surfaces, he as author saw it as symbol to transfiguration. The impression of the light as a medium of sacral illustration will also be enhanced by illumination of certain scenes according to the church calendar. An impulse in the lighting will change from warm to cool tones, dependent on the religious feast. The smelt of the Tessara was made in Moscow and for the golden and silver Tesserae, pure gold and silver were used. Despite having worked in the Moscow Cathedral of Christ the Saviour, the task in decorating Saint Sava was of different magnitude, as the dome and size of scenes are much larger and the artistic media more complex. His competition entry for the mosaic compositions in the Temple of Saint Sava was chosen from among approximately 50 competitors. His proposal was described as: "the artist uses a specific iconography which reaches back to the Byzantine and Serbian art and creates compositions which redefine the interior of a modern sacral space". Together with fellow Yevgeniy Nikolayevich Maksimov (b. 1948), director of the department of painting at the Russian Academy of Arts, a 1:10 scale model of the dome was made and installed at the Russian Embassy in Belgrade. The mosaic of the dome in the Church of Saint Sava was revealed by Sergey Lavrov during his state visit to Serbia 22 February 2018. The high symbolic value of the mosaic decoration was addressed at the same inaugural event by Hilarion (Alfeyev): “The mosaic decoration for the main cathedral of the Serbian Orthodox Church is a gift from Russia and its President, from the Russian artists and the Russian Orthodox Church led by her Patriarch, to the Serbian Orthodoxy. For many centuries to come it will be for future generations a sign of fraternal love between the Russian and the Serbian Orthodox Churches and the peoples they shepherd.” As of February 2020 a great deal of the mosaic works in the church of Saint Sava has been finished. The main motiv of the four apses are the life of christ with a central figure of the blessing Christ in the eastern apse spanning 17 m. The mosaics are reminiscent of Byzantine works from the 11th and 12th century in Southern Italy (Palermo, Monreale) and Venice. For the ground colour, gold tessera with pure gold are used, as gold symbolizes the transfiguration of Christ. 3000 workers participate in the laying of approximately 13.000 m² mosaic surface works, which will form the biggest mosaic ensemble ever executed. Among his other work for the Sava church he designed the main wheel chandelier in the space under the dome, with a diameter of 20 m and weight of 14 tonnes (the biggest wheel chandelier in any existing church).