One of the cities of the Golden Ring – Kostroma – is located on the banks of the Volga River, 330 km northeast of Moscow. Now it is a major port and the administrative center of the Kostroma region.
According to Rrrjewelry.com, the city was founded by Prince Yuri Dolgoruky in 1152 during his military campaign against the lands of the Kazan Bulgarians. At the beginning of the 13th century, the Mongol-Tatars burned Kostroma, but by 1246, under Prince Yaroslav Vsevolodovich, it was restored and proclaimed the capital city of the Kostroma specific principality. In 1272, the son of Yaroslav Vsevolodovich – Vasily – becomes the first specific Kostroma prince. In the 13-14 centuries, fortified monasteries began to be erected here, which protected the city, and numerous churches were also built.
In 1364 Kostroma part of the Moscow principality. Subsequently, several historical events happened in the vicinity of the city – in the Time of Troubles, supporters of False Dmitry II were expelled from the Ipatiev Monastery, Mikhail Fedorovich Romanov was crowned on the throne here, and in the Kostroma forests Ivan Susanin accomplished his feat and saved the new Romanov dynasty – led the Polish soldiers who wanted to destroy Mikhail Fedorovich, into a deaf swamp. Since then, Kostroma and the Ipatiev Monastery have become a family shrine of the Romanov dynasty, each new ruler, assuming the throne, considered it his duty to visit these places.
In the 17th century, the city flourished – handicrafts developed and trade relations with other cities and countries were established. All over Russia Kostroma builders, icon painters, tanners, blacksmiths, silversmiths, canvas workers were known. Leather products of local craftsmen were in great demand abroad. In the 18th century, after Catherine II visited the city, the coat of arms of Kostroma was established with the image of a boat on which the empress arrived here. Since 1778, Kostroma has become a provincial city. A few years later, a major fire destroyed almost all the wooden buildings of the city, after which the city was rebuilt. In the last decade of the 18th century, cloth factories began to open in Kostroma. Since then and to this day the city has been one of the largest centers of the textile industry in Russia.
Old town of Kostroma full of historical and architectural monuments. Here is the Kostroma Epiphany-Anastasinsky Monastery. Previously, the Epiphany Monastery and the Exaltation of the Cross Anastasia Convent existed separately. Anastasia Monastery was founded in the 15th century by the wife of Ivan the Terrible – Anastasia Romanovna. It was originally made of wood, but after a fire it was rebuilt using stone. The Epiphany Monastery was built in 1559. The unification of the monasteries took place after the fire of 1847, when the Epiphany Monastery was given over to the Anastasia Monastery. The united Epiphany-Anastasinsky Monastery during the wars served as a folk hospital. Sisters of mercy trained here, who cared for the wounded both in the monastery and on the battlefields. The Kostroma miraculous icon of the Fedorov Mother of God, which saved the city more than once, is located in the Epiphany-Anastasin Monastery.
The Trinity Cathedral of the Ipatiev Monastery is notable for the fact that Mikhail Fedorovich Romanov was crowned king here in the 17th century, since then the monastery has become a shrine for the Romanov family. The construction of the cathedral took place in the middle of the 16th century; it became the first stone building of the Ipatiev Monastery. Inside the cathedral is decorated with frescoes, which were painted by outstanding masters – Gury Nikitin and Sila Savin. In 1786, an iconostasis was built in the Trinity Cathedral in five tiers with columns and carvings.
In the middle of the 17th century, with the money of the merchant Kirill Isakov, the Church of the Resurrection on Debre was built in Kostroma.. The church is decorated with white-stone carvings and frescoes on the themes of the creation of the world, the Apocalypse and the Last Judgment. Here you can see the Three Saints Chapel, where scenes from the life of Basil the Great, Gregory the Theologian and John Chrysostom are depicted, and where there is a carved iconostasis with a gilded ornament. Also in the church is an icon depicting the waist-length Savior Almighty, dating back to the 15th century. The monument to Ivan Susanin by sculptor Nikita Lavinsky also stands out from the sights of the city. It was erected in 1967 on the Top of the Dairy Mountain in memory of the feat that this peasant accomplished.
