Postnik Yakovlev
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Postnik Yakovlev (Постник Яковлев), nicknamed "Barma" (Барма) ('the mumbler'), was the architect of St. Basil's Cathedral in Moscow.
According to legend, Ivan the Terrible blinded him so that he could never build anything so beautiful again. However, this is probably a myth, as Postnik designed the northeast chapel of St. Basil's years later, in 1588.
The cathedral was commissioned by Ivan the Terrible and built between 1555 and 1561 in Moscow to commemorate the capture of Khanate of Kazan. In 1588 Tsar Fedor Ivanovich had a chapel added on the eastern side above the grave of Basil Fool for Christ (yurodivy Vassily Blazhenny), a Russian Orthodox saint after whom the cathedral was popularly named
According to some historians, Barma was Yakovlev's assistant. Still others ascribe to him (or them), rather speculatively, churches in Staritsa, Murom, and Kazan. Also, there is a point of view that Yakovlev was Postnik's patronymic.
