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USSR-1972-1973

The Golden Ring: Yaroslavl, January 1973

Yaroslavl was the largest of the Golden Ring cities I visited, and the farthest from Moscow, at a distance of 250 kilometers or 160 miles.  I found it to be the most modern and spiffy of the Golden Ring cities we visited, but also the one with the fewest monuments surviving from pre-17th century times.  The reason for this is not because it is younger than the others; it was founded in 1010 by Yaroslav the Wise, then Prince of Rostov, who subsequently went on to rule as Grand Prince of Kiev from 1019 to 1054, and it is considered the oldest of the Russian towns on the Volga.  But for its first two centuries, it was a minor outpost of the principality of Rostov-Suzdal; eventually, in 1218, it became the capital of its own principality, but two circumstances conspired to delay its growth.  Unlike Rostov, Suzdal or Vladimir, it lacked the princely patronage which provided those cities with great stone cathedrals and monasteries.  It remained a city of wood, subject to devastating fires, one of which nearly consumed the entire town in 1222.  Added to this was its exposed location on the Volga, where it was easily accessible to invaders, in particular the Mongols of the Golden Horde.  The Horde first struck Yaroslavl in 1257 and returned several times in the century following, each time burning the city, decimating the population and forcing the survivors to start over from scratch.  In the 14th century the Black Plague arrived, bringing another wave of mass death.  Hardly had all these terrors begun to abate when, in 1463, the principality of Yaroslavl was swallowed up by the Grand Duchy of Moscow. 

Paradoxically, the loss of its independence proved to be a blessing in disguise for the city of Yaroslav.  Under Muscovite rule Yaroslav initially enjoyed a prolonged period of peace and stability, and it was able to take advantage of its favorable location on the Volga River to become the major entrepot for the river trade between the Baltic and England (via Arkhangelsk) and Moscow which developed in the 16th century.   The  prosperity thus engendered enabled the local elite to entertain thoughts of building in stone rather than wood, and as early as 1501, in the aftermath of a great fire which destroyed some of the city’s most venerated wooden structures, they began to do so.  The rulers of Moscow provided substantial support by sending skilled artisans to help with the construction and munificent endowments for the projects undertaken.  Ivan the Terrible was especially generous to Yaroslavl, making frequent pilgrimages to the city and bestowing rich gifts on its churches and monasteries.

The Time of Troubles at the beginning of the 17th century brought famine and foreign invasion to Muscovy, and Yaroslavl was not exempted from the general woe.  Poles and Lithuanians, supporting pretenders to the throne of Muscovy, occupied Moscow and besieged Yaroslavl in 1609, inflicting severe damage on the city.  Yet this proved to be only a temporary setback;  Yaroslavl played a leading role in repelling the invaders and restoring order in the country, and with the end of the Troubles in 1613 its economic and demographic growth resumed.  By the end of the 17th century it had become the second-largest city in Russia, with 15,000 inhabitants, and the accompanying prosperity gave rise to a proliferation of new building projects, mostly financed by local merchants.  This is why most of the surviving historical treasures of Muscovite-era Yaroslavl date from the 17th century, with a few from the 16th.  

The eighteenth century brought new challenges.  The establishment of St. Petersburg on the Baltic Sea in 1703 adversely affected Yaroslavl, because it diverted the Western European trade which had formerly flown down the Volga river network from Arkhangelsk to more westerly routes, bypassing Yaroslavl.  However, the city was able to compensate for this by investing in industrial enterprises, especially textiles.  It also became a provincial capital in the 1770s, as well as the seat of an archbishopric, further enhancing its importance.

The development of Yaroslavl as an industrial, administrative and cultural center, as well as the enhancement of its municipal infrastructure, continued throughout the nineteenth century, right down to the outbreak of World War I.  In 1897 the city had a population of over 71,000.  But war and revolution brought a severe decline in the city’s fortunes.  In 1918 Yaroslavl became a center of resistance against the Bolshevik Revolution, and the Red Army retaliated by besieging and shelling the city, inflicting numerous casualties and severe damage; subsequently the population and economy shrank precipitously.  Yet eventually Yaroslavl managed to bounce back from that catastrophe too, becoming a key Soviet industrial and transportation hub during the later 1920s and 30s.  In World War II, escaping occupation by the Germans, Yaroslavl’ became indispensable to the defense effort as a locus of armaments production as well as a source of manpower for the army.  It continued to grow and develop as an industrial center following the war, with the population reaching half a million in 1968.

For me, one of the chief attractions of Yaroslavl, which none of the other Old Russian towns I visited could boast, was its location on the banks of the Volga River.  This was the only time I ever saw that mighty stream in person, and I have to say that it is truly impressive.  January is the coldest month of the year in Russia, and the Volga was completely frozen over.  Although it’s less than a mile wide at Yaroslavl, it seemed much wider; I could hardly pick out distinct objects on the other side. 

View of the left (east) bank of the frozen River Volga, from the west bank

There is a park on the west bank of the Volga, known as the Volga Embankment Park in Russian, but I prefer to translate it as Bluff Park, a more succinct name (and one it shares with a much smaller park on the shore of the Pacific Ocean in my home town of Long Beach). Yaroslavl’s Bluff Park was created in the early 19th century, in the aftermath of a visit by Emperor Alexander I, who found the disorderly and bedraggled condition of the riverbank outrageous and ordered the locals to rectify matters immediately. They did, and ever since that time the riverbank has remained the pride and joy of the city, its chief promenade and an ideal venue for superb views of the river in all seasons.

Bluff Park on the west bank of the Volga at Yaroslavl

The Volga freezes over along almost its entire length during the months of December, January and February, and during that time river traffic mostly ceases. I would say “entirely” but for a small amount of pedestrian activity that I observed in the form of a lone figure fishing through a hole in the ice.

Ice Fishing on the Volga River

I could see snowmobile tracks too, but I didn’t see any snowmobiles while I was there; I doubt if there were many privately owned snowmobiles in Russia in 1972, although I suspect there are quite a few now. There were also a few idiots who ventured out to have their pictures taken on the ice, like the one in the picture below.

Walking on (frozen) Water

Yaroslavl was truly a winter wonderland. There had recently been an ice storm and all the trees and bushes were wreathed in frost.

Winter Wonderland – near the Church of St. Elijah

As we ventured inland from the river, we encountered what many consider to be the crown jewel of Yaroslavl, the Church of St. Elijah the Prophet, built in the middle of the 17th century with funds provided by a couple of local magnates, the Skripin brothers. The actual work was done by local craftsmen, and the interior was furnished with frescoes by famous artists of the time. In 1778 the city center was reconfigured on the basis of a radial street layout; the Church of St. Elijah was at the focus, in its own square, with the streets of the city radiating out from it, and a suite of government buildings situated nearby.

Church of Elijah the Prophet, 1650

St. Elijah’s was refurbished and restored several times before the Revolution of 1917. In 1920 it was turned over to the Yaroslav Museum Reserve, and during the 1930s, when so many churches were being torn down to make way for Soviet construction, the museum workers succeeded in saving it from the wrecker’s ball. In 1938-41, however, it was turned into an antireligious museum, and a Foucault’s pendulum was hung under the dome (!). Nevertheless, after World War II, the Soviet regime occasionally permitted restoration work to be performed, and eventually, in 1989, allowed church services to resume in the summertime. But when I was there, in 1973, the interior was closed to visitors.

The government buildings behind St. Elijah’s enclosed a small park, the Governor’s Garden, which was apparently intended as a playground for children.

Gubernatorsky Sad (Governor’s Garden) – children’s playground, with the top of the bell tower of St. Elijah’s visible in the background over the government building in the center

Not far away from St. Elijah’s stands the Church of the Nativity of Christ. This was built in 1644 on the site of an earlier wooden church, which according to legend served as a hiding-place for a miracle-working icon saved from the Polish invaders who besieged the city in 1609. Construction was funded by three brothers of the Nazarev family, a prosperous clan of the Yaroslav merchant community. It is one of the earliest stone churches to be built in Yaroslavl, and is said to be the first to have its walls adorned with tiles. Other than that it was constructed on a plan typical for Yaroslavl in that period, with a four-pillared core surrounded by galleries and crowned with a five-domed roof. Following the initial construction, numerous additions, modifications and enhancements were made, so that the current church barely resembles the original. In 1831-32, during the course of a renovation project sponsored by the local bishop, four of the domes were removed, and the central dome was reconfigured.

Larry Lerner at the Church of the Nativity of Christ, 17th Century

The Nativity Church was closed in 1922, and in 1929, after some restoration work, it was turned over to the Museum Department of the Main Administration of Scientific, Science-Artistic and Museum Institutions (Glavnauka), a division of the Ministry of Education, which rented it out as storage and living quarters. In the postwar era, restoration work was begun in 1959 and continued for the following decade; in 1970 it was turned over to the Yaroslavl Historical and Architectural Museum Reserve.

Proceeding a little farther from St. Elijah’s, past the government buildings on the square and toward the downtown shopping area, we encountered an imposing edifice on Deputies’ Lane, which turned out to be the Sretensky (Candlemas) Church. A note on Candlemas is in order here, because it is not widely celebrated anymore in the Western world, and not everyone, especially in the USA, knows what it means. Candlemas commemorates the ritual purification of Mary, 40 days after the birth of her son Jesus, as well as the ritual presentation of the baby Jesus to God in the Temple at Jerusalem. Where it is celebrated, it is customary to place lighted candles in the windows of one’s home.

Sretenskaya (Candlemas) Church, on Deputatsky Pereulok (Deputy Lane), Yaroslavl, 1973

The original version of the Sretensky church was built in 1685. It was then only a simple two-story structure, and did not acquire the signature bell-tower until 1895, as part of a complete remodeling in pseudo-Russian revival style, financed by a wealthy Yaroslav industrialist, I. N. Dunaev, and conducted under the supervision of architect Nikolai Ivanovich Pozdeev. But it was to enjoy this enhanced status only until 1929, when it was appropriated by the Soviet regime and converted into a club for medical workers. Thereafter its maintenance was sorely neglected and it fell into decrepitude. In 1994 it was returned to the Russian Orthodox Church, but I have not been able yet to find out what has happened to it since.

Our leisurely meandering through downtown Yaroslavl eventually took us, as intended, to the Spaso-Preobrazhensky Monastery. Just outside it, we came across another striking attraction, the Church of the Archangel Michael. The original was built of wood in the early 13th century, but like so much else in Yaroslavl, the current masonry incarnation dates from the 17th century. Construction took place over a 25-year period between 1657 and 1682; during that period the architectural tastes of the local merchants who financed its construction changed, with the result that it incorporates elements from two stages in the development of Muscovite sacred architecture. The base of the church is very similar in form to the Church of St. Elijah (a four-pillar, three-apse structure completed in 1650), while the upper stories reflect the fashion of the 1670s and 1680s, which favored robust 5-domed roofs and large windows.

The Church of Archangel Michael has always had a close connection with the military, and for most of its existence has served as a garrison chapel. This was doubtless what the builders intended, given its location, which in the 17th century was known as the “Streltsy District” (streletskaya sloboda), the streltsy being the musketeers constituting the elite force of the Muscovite army in those days. The connection is also reflected in the church’s name: the Archangel Michael was considered the leader of the heavenly hosts in the wars against the hordes of Satan, and hence the patron of all Christian military forces. I have a poster from the Russian civil war period of 1918-21 which depicts Lenin and Trotsky, at the head of a mob of Bolsheviks, being driven over a cliff into hell by the Archangel Michael wielding a flaming sword. The association with the Archangel Michael was not calculated to endear the church to the Soviet regime, and in 1924 it was closed and began to fall into disrepair. Valuable artworks and sacral items were pilfered, and in general the interior suffered extensive damage. Judging from the pictures I took in January 1973, the exterior fared somewhat better, though not without some deterioration.

In 1994 the Archangel Michael church was returned to the Russian Orthodox Church, and by 2000 the exterior had been replastered and the stained-glass windows restored. But much else remained to be done, and I don’t yet have any information on the progress of the restoration in the last two decades.

The Church of Michael the Archangel

From the Archangel Michael church, we only had to cross the street to reach the final destination of our walking tour of Yaroslavl, the Spaso-Preobrazhensky Monastery. Actually, the monastery is only one component of a complex called the Yaroslavl Museum Reserve (Yaroslavsky Muzei-Zapovednik). Established by the Soviet government in 1924, this institution embraces a number of churches, museums, exhibitions and other attractions. Its collections contain over 350,000 items, which include icons, manuscripts, household goods, church implements, etc. Among the exhibits is one devoted entirely to the Lay of the Host of Igor, the great epic of medieval Russia, the sole surviving manuscript of which was discovered in the library of the Spaso-Preobrazhensky Monastery in 1795.

However, we had only a limited time to explore the complex before we had to catch the last train back to Moscow, so we decided to focus on the monastery, with its spectacular cathedral and bell tower.

The Spaso-Preobrazhensky Cathedral is the oldest surviving detached structure in Yaroslavl, having been built in the early 16th century, in the reign of Grand Prince Vasily III, who sent artisans from Moscow to assist with the construction. As was frequently the case in Yaroslavl, it replaced an older wooden version which had burned down in a fire in 1501. At the time I visited, the Spaso-Preobrazhensky Cathedral was undergoing restoration, as is evident in the preceding photo.

The 16th-century Spaso-Preobrazhensky Cathedral, at left; the classical structure adjoining it on the right is the Church of the Yaroslavl Miracle Workers; to the right of that church is the monastery’s bell tower.

Next to the Spaso-Preobrazhensky Cathedral, rather awkwardly placed to my way of thinking, is a very different structure, the Church of the Yaroslavl Miracle Workers (Tserkov’ Yaroslavskikh Chudotvortsev). It too replaced an older building, the Church of the Entry of Our Lord into Jerusalem, damaged in the fire of 1501, but only after an interval of several hundred years. In the meantime, the Church of the Entry of Our Lord into Jerusalem was rebuilt (1619) and continued to stand until 1827, when work on the present church was begun. The new name, Church of the Yaroslavl Miracle Workers, commemorated the discovery of relics of a miracle-working prince and his sons in the basement of the original church in 1463. The new church, completed in 1831, embodies a mishmash of architectural styles. Classicism is manifest in the western facade (shown in the photo above), with a triangular pediment supported by Ionic columns. But the eastern facade harks back to the old Russian architectural tradition, with three semicircular apses constituting the altar area, and a cupola with a small dome sits on top. It looks rather incongruous, sandwiched in between the 16th-century cathedral and the 17th-century bell tower.

Bell Tower of Spaso-Preobrazhensky Monastery

The bell tower was actually begun in the 16th century. The original tower consisted of two stories, with a chapel on the ground floor and the belfry on the second level. But over the following three centuries major modifications were made. In 1809 a third story was added which then became the belfry. The tower attained its final form in 1824 with the erection of the round 8-column gazebo on top.

The tower was badly damaged during the uprising of 1918, and although repair work was conducted in the 1920s and 1950s, it was not fully restored at the time I visited in 1973. In particular, the bells were still missing. They were finally remounted in 1991; among them were some original 16th-century bells.

Spaso-Preobrazhensky Monastery – Entrance to Cafeteria

The Spaso-Preobrazhensky Monastery has been in existence since the 12th century, and in 1216-1218 it held the first theological seminary in northeast Russia, though this was shortly moved to Rostov, and the original versions of the Spaso-Preobrazhensky Cathedral and the Entry into Jerusalem Church date from this period also.

As I have already noted, there was a great fire in 1501 which destroyed or badly damaged much of the existing monastery, but it was followed by a great building spree which produced not only the present-day incarnation of the Spaso-Preobrazhensky Cathedral and the original version of the bell tower, but also the first stone walls and towers of the monastery. Later in the century, the monastery became one of the favorite beneficiaries of Ivan the Terrible, who showered favors on it in the form of land grants, fishing grounds, salt mines, tax exemptions and legal immunities.

Old Russian monasteries were typically intended not just as places of worship but also as citadels – kremlins in their own right – providing defense against foreign and domestic enemies. This was especially true of the Spaso-Preobrazhensky Monastery, whose 16th-century stone walls, replacing an earlier wooden stockade, stood the monastery in good stead during the Time of Troubles in the early 17th century. In 1609 Polish-Lithuanian forces, which had already occupied Moscow, attacked and destroyed most of the city of Yaroslavl, but the monastery held out against them. Later, in 1612, the monastery became the waystation where the forces raised in Nizhnyi Novgorod by Kuzma Minin and Dmitri Pozharsky stopped on their way to liberate Moscow from the invaders. Mikhail Romanov, the future tsar, issued his letter of acceptance to the throne while staying in the Spaso-Preobrazhensky Monastery on his way to Moscow in 1613.

In the aftermath of the Time of Troubles, the monastery walls were further strengthened and new towers were added. A spate of new construction occurred in the late 17th century, when a new dormitory wing for the monks was built. In 1747 a Slavic-Latin Theological Academy, one of the first in Russia, was opened on the grounds of the monastery.

In 1787, in connection with the transfer of the archbishopric of Rostov to Yaroslavl, the monastery became the archbishop’s residence. In the following decades major new construction was undertaken – the Church of the Yaroslav Miracle-Workers, Smolensk Chapel, a seminary wing and a sacristy – the last two of which appear in the preceding and following photos.

Spaso-Preobrazhensky Monastery – Entrance to Sacristy

In the Soviet period, the monastery became the kernel of the Yaroslavl State Historical, Architectural and Art Museum Reserve.

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USSR-1972-1973

The Golden Ring: Rostov Veliky, 1973

In January of 1973, I took an overnight trip with a group of other American exchange students to a couple of the old Russian towns to the northeast of Moscow. Our first stop was Rostov. There are at least two cities in Russia named Rostov. One is way south of Moscow, on the Don River. It is usually called Rostov-na-Donu “Rostov-on-the-Don” to distinguish it from the other one, which is called “Rostov Veliky” (Rostov the Great). Confusingly, Rostov the Great is a small provincial town of around 30,000 people in the hinterland of Moscow, while Rostov on the Don is a major city of over a million people, close to the Sea of Azov. But it was not always so. Rostov Veliky is one of the oldest of all Russian towns, already an important settlement in 862, according to the Russian Primary Chronicle. At one time it was the capital of the Vladimir-Suzdal principality, although it later yielded that status first to Suzdal and then to Vladimir. Like the other old Russian towns, it was eclipsed and swallowed up by Moscow (1474); it also suffered greatly from the Mongol invasions and the wars with the Poles in the 17th century. But it remained an important ecclesiastical center down through the 18th century. In the 16th century, when the Metropolitan Bishop of Moscow was elevated to the status of Patriarch, the Bishop of Rostov was promoted to Metropolitan rank.

When we arrived in Rostov by train on a cold January morning, the town was shrouded in fog. The fog eventually lifted, but it remained for the most part a dreary, overcast day. But as we stumbled and groped our way from the railroad station through the center of town, suddenly there loomed up before us the Rostov Kremlin, a magnificent sight.

Larry Lerner in front of the Rostov Kremlin

The Rostov Kremlin, unlike most of the kremlins in other old Russian cities such as Moscow, was never intended as a defensive work. It was built in the later 17th century, long after the depredations of the Mongols and Poles had ceased, by the then Metropolitan of Rostov, Jonah Sysoevich, a protege of the great Muscovite church reformer Patriarch Nikon, as a statement of the importance and grandeur of the Rostov archbishopric. His residence inside the Kremlin was the Krasnaya Palata – “Red Chamber” – which is now a museum.

Inside the Rostov Kremlin: Krasnaya Palata (museum)

The main cathedral of the Rostov Kremlin is the Uspensky Sobor, or Cathedral of the Assumption, which resembles its counterpart in the Moscow Kremlin. Together with the Bell Tower and other structures, it presents an impression of a coherent architectural ensemble. But the construction of the original cathedral greatly predates that of the other structures. It was begun in the mid-12th century, rebuilt in the 1220s, just before the Mongol invasion (1237), again in the 1480s and yet again in 1512; and possibly further enhanced in the 1580s. The flaring onion domes were added in the late 17th century, replacing earlier low hemispherical cupolas to match the new structures built by Jonah Sysoevich. One of these was the Bell Tower. It has four bells, the largest of which weighs 35 tons; together with the three smaller bells, each of which is of a different size and has a different timbre, it constitutes a musical instrument sui generis, with a distinctive “Rostov sound.”

The Rostov Kremlin bell-tower. Uspensky Sobor at left.

Another component of the architectural ensemble is the Resurrection Church, built in 1670 at the main gate of the compound.

Resurrection Gate Church, 17th century. From inside the Rostov Kremlin.

Yet another church, the Hodegetria, clashes with the style of the others; an example of the Moscow Baroque style, it is rectangular in shape, with but one dome, and an exterior decorated with diamond-shaped cladding (this is called the “diamond rust” technique).

Hodegetria Church, inside the Rostov Kremlin, with the mathematician Mel Nathanson strolling past the Church of the Resurrection next to it.

Leaving the Kremlin, we retraced our steps back through town to the train station. By this time the fog had dissipated and the sun was beginning to shine weakly on the snowy streets.

Downtown Rostov

Traipsing through the downtown area, we shortly reached the residential district. By this time it was afternoon and there were a number of citizens strolling the streets, some of them pushing prams with children.

Rostov Street Scene

For some of us, it was our first look at a small provincial town in Russia. Wooden houses, many of them apparently built in a traditional style dating from before the 1917 revolution, predominated. Not a few of them were decorated with elaborately carved wooden window frames, which I found quite charming. Picket fences were also ubiquitous.

Rostov izba (log cabin) – elegant window frames

All of the houses seemed to have tall TV antennae, but they evidently lacked something I would consider still more essential: running water. This was apparent from the pumps that people clustered round to fill their buckets of water. I didn’t realize it at the time, having lived in Southern California most of my life, how much more of a luxury it is to have running water in a cold climate than in a warm one. A year or so later, after returning to the USA, I found out from a friend who was building houses in Connecticut that pipes in cold country have to be wrapped in electrical conduit to keep them from freezing and bursting in the winter. And of course the pipes have to be laid in the first place in the summer, when the ground isn’t too hard or too muddy to dig up.

People filling their buckets at the well in a Rostov residential district. Their houses did not have running water.

I was especially struck by this one modest dwelling which I called “the leaning cottage of Rostov” from its tippy appearance. When we were shooting pictures of this and the other wooden houses, some of the locals came up to us and said, “Don’t shoot pictures of the houses. The houses are bad. Shoot pictures of the school instead – it’s nice.”

The leaning cottage of Rostov

But we found the cottages, however humble, authentic and picturesque, while the school was quite ordinary and boring.

Rostov Schoolhouse

There were also some more modern and pretentious houses of more recent vintage, most likely belonging to the local notables.

Upscale house in Rostov

After blundering about in the snow for a while, and exploring the town in the pale light of a winter afternoon, we finally reached the station and boarded the train for Yaroslavl.

High-rent district in Rostov. In the background is the Spaso-Yakovlevsky Monastery, which has distinctive green domes.

I think Rostov – like most of the Golden Ring towns – is now much changed from when I was there. The impressions I have obtained from the websites that I have seen, such as Top 10 Travel and Russia Beyond, suggest that the provincial standard of living has considerably improved and that the historical monuments have been restored to a degree that was inconceivable under the Soviet regime. To what degree these impressions are correct I can only speculate, until I have a chance to return to the sites that I visited back in the dark age of 1973.

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USSR-1972-1973

The Golden Ring: Suzdal, January 1973

In January ’73 I made a couple of trips to some of the Old Russian towns northeast of Moscow, in what had once been known as the Vladimir-Suzdal area.  This region first came into prominence in the 12th century AD, as the civil wars among the Russian princes and the depredations of the steppe nomads began to sap the strength of the Kievan principality.

One trip, which I made together with my girlfriend Vera, was to Suzdal itself.  Suzdal is a very small town, with a population of about 10,000 today, and probably less when we were there in 1973.  But it is a very old town, and under Prince Yuri Dolgoruky, who founded Moscow in 1147, it was already the capital of its own principality, Rostov-Suzdal, later renamed to Vladimir-Suzdal when Yuri’s son Andrei Bogoliubsky transferred the capital to Vladimir in 1157.  Eventually, in 1392, Suzdal was absorbed into the rising principality of Moscow.  Thereafter it remained an important commercial and religious center, with an impressive number of churches, mostly built and paid for by wealthy merchants. But in the 19th century, its mercantile importance took a serious hit with the building of the Trans-Siberian Railroad, which bypassed Suzdal in favor of its rival Vladimir, 35 kilometers (22 miles) to the south.   

Yet the economic eclipse of the town became its salvation as a historical and religious site.  In the Soviet period it avoided industrialization and retained its character as an Old Russian provincial town, and the  government reinforced this fortuitous “backwardness” by making it an officially protected site, off-limits to industrial development, in 1967.  Since the end of the Soviet regime, it has blossomed into a major tourist attraction, and is considered to be the best-preserved of the Golden Ring towns.  

When I was there in 1973, in the dead of winter, Suzdal seemed like a typical run-down, backwater town, but despite its overall forlorn appearance there were wonderful sights to see. I don’t remember at all how we got there – it had to have been by bus – but we began our tour, which was made entirely on foot, at the north end of town.  This was the domain of great monasteries and convents.  The first one we came across was the Pokrovsky (Intercession) Convent.  It was founded in 1364, but nothing  from that time has survived, and the imposing structures currently found there date mostly from the 16th century.  Beginning in the reign of Vasily III, the Pokrovsky Convent became a haven for aristocratic women taking the vows, whether voluntarily or involuntarily, and during the later 16th and 17th centuries it was one of the largest and richest convents in Russia.

Pokrovsky (Intercession) Convent, 16th Century

I’m not exactly sure why the convent was equipped with such formidable walls and towers – was it more to keep the nuns safe from the outside world, or to keep them from getting out? Whatever the case, there is less doubt about the next monastery we saw, the Spaso-Efimiev (Savior Monastery of St. Euthemius), which for much of its existence was used as a prison. Like the Pokrovsky Convent, it was founded in the 14th century (1352), but the current structures date from the 16th and 17th centuries. It benefited from donations by Vasily II, Ivan the Terrible, and the Pozharsky family, one of whose scions, Dmitri Pozharsky, was (along with Kuzma Minin, the butcher from Nizhnyi Novgorod) the leader of the national uprising that expelled the Poles from Muscovy at the end of the Time of Troubles in the early 17th century. His grave lies by the wall of the Spaso-Preobrazhensky Cathedral, inside the walls of the monastery.

Spaso-Efimiev Monastery and Smolensk Church (center), 1696-1706

The Spaso-Efimiev Monastery began as a fortress, intended for the defense of the city, to keep invaders out, but it eventually became instead a place for keeping people in, i.e. a prison. The frowning walls and grim towers of the monastery certainly give it the look of a prison. The person most responsible for turning it into one was Catherine II, who in 1766 secularized the monastery and began to use it as a place for confining religious and political dissidents, including but not limited to Old Believers. Thus it remained down to 1905, when the prison was closed; but the Soviets reopened it again in the 1930s, first using it for political prisoners, then during World War II for high-ranking prisoners of war. The German Field Marshal von Paulus, who surrendered his army at Stalingrad, was its most famous inmate.

Walls of the Savior Monastery of St. Euthemius

From the Monastery of St. Euthemius we ventured southward toward the town center. On the way we encountered traditional pre-revolutionary Russian houses like the one in the picture below, with all kinds of picturesque wood carvings adorning the exterior. I say “pre-revolutionary” because I doubt that anyone would have had the time or resources to create such obviously labor-intensive constructions while in the throes of revolution, civil war, industrialization, collectivization, World War II and post-war reconstruction efforts.

Traditional Russian wooden house, with carved wooden “icicles” handing from the eaves, carved wooden window-frames and porch railings

In my experience, with few exceptions the most interesting and attractive structures in Russia are those created before the 1917 Revolution. The house in the picture below, a veritable mansion, is another example of traditional Russian wooden residential architecture.

Another example of Russian provincial wooden architecture

As we continued south toward the center of Suzdal, I observed how the whole town preserved a rural, wide-open appearance, with clusters of buildings interspersed among empty snow-covered fields and woods.

View of Suzdal Kremlin across frozen furrowed fields

At the heart of old Suzdal was its Kremlin, dating from as early as the 10th century AD.  It’s very different from the that of Moscow – it lacks the high stone walls and towers of the latter.  In the 11th and 12 centuries an earthen berm was raised around it, on top of which a log stockade with wooden towers was erected.  The wooden fortifications burned down in 1719, and today only the earthen berm is left.  In the Suzdal Kremlin are situated the Cathedral of the Nativity of the Virgin, the bishop’s palace complex and the wooden Nikolsky Church, not to be confused with the Church of St. Nicholas, which stands outside the Kremlin next to the Church of the Nativity of Christ.

In the foreground, just to the left of the lamppost, is the Church of the Nativity of Christ, with the bell tower of the Church of St. Nicholas just behind it; in the background is the Suzdal Kremlin, with the Cathedral of the Nativity of the Virgin at center. The upper tip of the spire of the wooden Nikolsky Church can be seen to the right of the lamppost.

The Cathedral of the Nativity of the Virgin was begun around 1222. In 1445 the Kazan Tatars burned down Suzdal, destroying the upper half of the church, which was rebuilt in 1528, and remodeled again in the 17th century. The bishop’s palace complex grew up next to the cathedral over a period from the fifteenth to the eighteenth centuries and now houses a museum of local history. The wooden Nikolsky Church, a prime example of a simple and ancient form of Russian wooden construction, was built in 1766 in a village in the north of the Vladimir region, and transplanted to Suzdal in 1960.

The Suzdal Kremlin is located in the bight of a bend in the Kamenka River, which flows through the town; in midwinter the river was frozen, and we strolled along the banks, watching children play on the ice.

Children playing on the frozen Kamenka River in Suzdal

Crossing a bridge to the south bank of the river, we headed for the Museum of Wooden Architecture and Peasant Life. A light snowfall was underway as we came to the Museum. We were not able to view any indoor exhibits – I don’t recall whether it was a holiday or whether no indoor exhibits existed yet – so for us it was strictly an open-air museum.

Bridge over the Kamenka River; Museum of Wooden Architecture and Peasant Life in background

In any case, we found two wooden churches. One has a couple of towers with tiny onion domes at either end of a connecting structure, all with steeply sloped roofs; this is the Church of the Resurrection (). The other has a large central tower with a medium-size onion dome on top and four smaller onion domes on the surrounding corners. This was the Church of the Transfiguration (Tserkov’ Preobrazhenskaya Gospodnya iz Kozlyat’evo). The construction of these wooden churches – and there are many like them all over Russia – is to me amazing: they were built without nails.

Museum of Wooden Architecture and Peasant Life – Church of the Resurrection on the right; on the left, in rear, the Church of the Transfiguration

No less surprising to me were the windmills. There were two of them, with four-bladed rotors. I had no idea windmills were used in pre-revolutionary Russia, though it certainly seems like a good idea for the 19th century as well as the 21st.

Museum of Wooden Architecture and Peasant Life – The Old Windmills

We also encountered a (to me) completely bizarre structure called a kolyosnyi kolodets or “Wheel Well”. This consisted of a large wooden wheel with chocks or steps inside which served as a treadmill. A peasant got inside the wheel and trod on the steps to make the wheel turn. Two large buckets were attached to the wheel with ropes so that they were alternately lowered into the well and brought up full of water. The device was also known as a stupal’nyi kolodets, or “step well”. This one dates from the 19th century.

Vera checks out the Museum of Wooden Architecture and Peasant Life; the Wheel Well (or step well) in the background between the two mills.

A little way past the Museum of Wooden Architecture, we came across a non-wooden structure, the Church of the Holy Blessed Princes Boris and Gleb. These were Russian princes, sons of Vladimir the Great, the ruler of Kievan Russia, who contrived to convert his subjects to Christianity in 988. Legend has it that when Vladimir died in 1015, his eldest son Sviatopolk had his younger brothers Boris and Gleb murdered to ensure his succession to the throne. Although the brothers knew of Sviatopolk’s intentions, they refused to raise their hands against him, and because they did not resist evil with violence, they became the first saints canonized by the Russian Orthodox Church after the conversion.

Church of Sts. Boris and Gleb

The date of construction of the Boris and Gleb church is uncertain; from the styles involved experts have concluded that it was most likely built at the end of the 17th century, while the bell tower was built later, around 1749. In 1923 it was closed, and it was among several churches earmarked for removal, with the intention of salvaging its remains to be used in the construction of new buildings, for example a town bathhouse. This actually happened to a neighboring church, but the Church of Boris and Gleb somehow was bypassed and survives to this day. In the early 2000s it was returned to the Orthodox Church, which undertook a renovation project in 2017.

Judging from the many photos I’ve seen on the many tourism websites devoted to the old Russian towns, Suzdal, though remaining a small town, would be almost unrecognizable were I to go there today. There are numerous private hotels, restaurants, cafes, and souvenir shops, and many churches and other establishments are now open that were closed to the public in 1973. It appears to me that whatever one may think of the present regime, the demise of communism liberated creative powers of the Russian people which had been bottled up and suppressed for many years and allowed them to find expression in ways that have proven beneficial both to themselves and to visitors like myself. I can’t wait to go back.