Aleksin is located in the northwestern part of the Tula region.
Administrative center of the Aleksinsky district of the region. Aleksin
is an industrial city, there are few tourists and travelers here. Some
are attracted by the nature of the Oka with its pine forest, where the
creative intelligentsia liked to relax in their summer dachas. On the
other hand, the concentration of industrial development on the right
bank of the Oka made it possible to preserve the integral image of the
county town on the left.
Aleksin is located on both banks of the
Oka River, the two parts of the city are connected by two bridges, the
only ones for many kilometers up and down the river.
The city
center, oddly enough, is defined in the middle of the low left bank
part, partly because the bulk of the residential neighborhoods formed
from working settlements are located here, the largest and most famous
of which is Sotsgorod. The main industrial enterprises connected by
railway tracks are also located here.
However, travelers who want
to see something interesting have nothing to do on the left bank. The
historical part of the city of Old Aleksin is called Zarechye and is
located on the right high bank of the Oka. Historical and private
buildings predominate here.
All Orthodox parishes in Aleksin belong to the Belyov diocese of the
Russian Orthodox Church. The city’s most important church ensemble
stands on Bazarnaya Square: the Holy Dormition complex, where two
Assumption cathedrals stand side by side.
The Old Assumption
Cathedral is the oldest stone church in town. It was built in 1688 with
funds from boyar Ivan Timofeyevich Kondyrev and the widow Tatyana
Alekseyevna Butikova. After a long period of neglect it was restored in
2006-2011 and reconsecrated in 2013. Next to it rises the New Assumption
Cathedral, erected in 1806-1813 (consecrated in 1815) at the expense of
merchant Ivan Maslov. A free-standing three-tier bell tower was added in
1829; later a refectory joined tower and church and received side
chapels dedicated to the Apostles Peter and Paul and to St. Alexis,
Metropolitan of Moscow. Together the two cathedrals form a single
architectural monument of federal significance.
St. Nicholas Church
(1787) was paid for by second-guild merchant Ivan Savostin and his
brothers. It follows a typical late-eighteenth-century plan: a square
core opening through high arches into side chapels, crowned by an
octagon, a tall drum with lucarnes, and a dome. The bell tower and porch
were demolished in 1937; a direct bomb hit destroyed the main altar
during the Great Patriotic War. The ruined building was returned to the
Church in 1990, services resumed the same year, and the church was fully
reconsecrated on 13 August 2003. It stands at 43 Sovetskaya Street and
is open daily.
The Aleksin Art and Local History Museum occupies the
former city estate of the first-guild Maslov merchants at 38 Sovetskaya
Street. The main house, a mature-classicism mansion of the last quarter
of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, is a federal
cultural-heritage site (listed in 1995). The museum itself was founded
in 1974 and opened to visitors in 1980. Emperors Alexander I (1817) and
Alexander II (then heir to the throne, 1837) stayed in this house.
Exhibits cover Aleksin’s role as a border fortress of the Muscovite
state in the fourteenth-seventeenth centuries and the merchant life of
the provincial town in the eighteenth and early twentieth centuries.
Just outside the historic core, in what is now the Petrovskoye district,
stands the former estate of the princes Tyufyakin, a notable example of
estate classicism begun in the early 1770s by Prince Ivan Petrovich
Tyufyakin, a Rurikid and court official under Catherine II. The last of
the line, Pyotr Ivanovich Tyufyakin, childhood friend of Alexander I and
later director of the Imperial Theaters, owned the property in the early
nineteenth century. It then passed to the Romeiko-Gurko family and, at
the beginning of the twentieth century, to Vladimir Ber. Among later
guests were physiologist Ivan Sechenov, composer Alexander Scriabin,
and, in the summer of 1914, Boris Pasternak. The two-storey house with
its columned rotunda still looks out over the high bank of the Oka, but
the estate is now in ruins.
In the village of Kolosovo, about ten
kilometres from Aleksin, stands the Chertkov-Paskhalov estate, the only
Gothic-style country house in Tula Oblast. Staff-captain Alexander
Chertkov built a classical ensemble here in the first quarter of the
nineteenth century after the war of 1812. At the end of the century
state councillor and writer Klavdy Nikandrovich Paskhalov rebuilt the
main house as a “castle”: pointed windows, an angular tower, crenellated
parapets, pinnacles, and a grand staircase descending through terraces,
a pool and fountains toward a lime park and the Oka. Fires in 2004
gutted the interiors; the roof collapsed and the house remains in poor
condition. Volunteers still organize regular clean-up days. Restoration
and conversion into a cultural-tourism centre have been discussed in
recent years.
Near the city lies the Mound of Glory, a 1965 memorial
to soldiers who fell defending Aleksin. A 14-metre stele crowned with
the Order of the Patriotic War rises above an artificial mound. The
complex includes the Eternal Flame (lit from the city’s Victory
Memorial), the grave of an Unknown Soldier found near the village of
Botnya, a pedestal with a D-1 howitzer, twenty-five cast-iron
bas-reliefs on wartime themes, and soil from the Brest Fortress laid in
the foundation in 1967. Birch alleys frame the site.
Aleksin is located in the northwestern corner of the region on the
banks of the Oka between the regional Tula and Kaluga. It would seem
that such a location should make Aleksin an important transport hub.
However, to get to the city you need to plan your route quite carefully.
By train
The city is located on the railway line that connects
Kaluga and Tula. From Monday to Thursday, three pairs of uncoordinated
trains depart from Aleksin: one each to Kaluga, and through Tula’s
Ryazhsky station (30 minutes by transport from Moskovsky station) to
Uzlovaya and Urvanka (for the summer of 2013). Morning and evening of
these trains include an overnight stay in Aleksin (including all from/to
Kaluga). On Fridays and weekends, two pairs of accelerated trains are
added from Kaluga to Tula's Moskovsky station during the day (one of the
pairs goes to Uzlovaya). An alternative way to get there by rail is to
go to Tula, from where there are many minibuses to Aleksin, Tarusskaya
(then 3 buses daily) or Serpukhov (2 buses on Fridays and weekends).
Train Station.
By car
Aleksin is easily accessible from
the M2 highway, from which there are several exits to local roads. The
distance from the highway to the city will be about 30-40 kilometers.
Following a regional road repair program, local roads are two-lane and
in good condition. Entrance to the city is carried out from the eastern
side of the city, the entrance highways smoothly turn into Tulskaya
Street, which leads to a circle in the historical center and then to a
road bridge on the opposite part of the bank. There are several gas
stations of well-known companies in the city. There are no problems with
parking; travel on some streets in the historical part of the city is
limited by signs. Parking lots are located near the churches, a large
one near the St. Nicholas Church, a small one near the Assumption
Cathedrals, however. to get to the latter, you need to drive through the
active market.
Inexplicably, transport accessibility by car from
the western part of the city is extremely poorly resolved. There is no
obvious road to Ferzikovo and further to Kaluga and is not in sight.
There is an option to take country roads from the Kaluga-Tarusa highway,
take the exit to Parsukovo (the northern suburb of Aleksin) ten
kilometers from Tarusa. It is recommended to try your luck in dry
weather or on an SUV.
By bus
Intercity bus service connects
Aleksin with Tula, Moscow and Serpukhov. There are buses from Tula to
Aleksin from the bus station and from the Yuzhnaya bus station. From
Moscow - minibuses from the metro stations Dmitry Donskoy Boulevard and
Krasnogvardeyskaya.
Bus station.
On the ship
From
Kaluga during the navigation period by boat twice a day, departure from
Kaluga in the morning, from Aleksin back in the late afternoon.
Transport around the city
There are 12 bus routes in the city.
Buy
Hypermarket Magnit, st. Bolotova 8 building 3. from 9:00 to 21:00.
Hypermarket Spar, st. 50 years of October.
Hypermarket Magnit, sh.
Generala Korotkova, 2. ☎ 8-800-200-90-02. from 8:00 to 22:00.
Hotels
Average cost
Hotel "Oka", st. Revolutions, no. 9. ☎ +7 (48753)
6-77-40.
Hotel "Salut", Bolotova str., 18. Around the clock.
Etymology
According to legend, he was named by the Moscow prince Daniil Alexandrovich after his son Alexander (from the derivative form of Alex, Alex). Sometimes the name is associated with the name of Metropolitan Alexei, to whom the city was given for feeding in 1354.
According to legend, Aleksin was founded at the end of the 13th
century by the first Moscow prince Daniil Alexandrovich, the youngest
son of Alexander Nevsky, but the official date of birth of Aleksin is
considered to be 1348, under which it was first mentioned in the Nikon
Chronicle.
There are also documents confirming the “purchase” of
Aleksin by Metropolitan Peter of Kyiv and All Rus'. The date of the
“purchase” is not specified, but it could not have happened later than
1326 (the year of the death of Metropolitan Peter) - this date was also
used for a long time as the starting point for the history of Aleksin.
The founding date of 1236 found in some sources is caused by a typo in
the date “1326” in one of the encyclopedias of the early 20th century
and is not confirmed in the sources.
Aleksin was the patrimony of
the metropolitans of Kyiv and all Rus' from the moment of its purchase
by Metropolitan Peter (no later than 1326) until the early 1390s, when
the Moscow prince Vasily Dmitrievich exchanged it from Metropolitan
Cyprian for the Korash settlement. Later, the city belonged to the
Mozhaisk prince Ivan Andreevich, but Vasily II bequeathed it to his son
as a grand-ducal possession.
In 1472, Khan of the Great Horde
Akhmat entered Russian soil with significant forces. Moscow did not know
exactly where Akhmat was heading and therefore took the usual
precautions. In this regard, on July 29, 1472, the enemy was able to
approach the wooden fortress - the city of Aleksin - almost unhindered.
The Alexinians selflessly began to fight the enemy. Chroniclers who
described the battle for Aleksin noted the heroism and courage of the
townspeople: “... the citizens bravely defended themselves and beat many
Tatars. Soon, however, there was nothing left to defend with; there was
neither an arrow nor a spear left,” writes historian S. M. Solovyov. On
July 30, the Tatars set fire to the fortress, but the townspeople
bravely defended themselves; The merit of the Aleksinites is that it was
they who held back the superior enemy forces for two days. During the
time that the battle of Aleksin was going on, Ivan III managed to send
troops to defend Moscow.
The historical novel “The Forerunner”
(1987) by the St. Petersburg writer and military historian I. N.
Loschilov is dedicated to the heroic defense of Aleksin from the army of
the Golden Horde Khan Akhmat in 1472.
After the events of 1472,
Aleksin throughout the XV-XVI centuries remained an important outpost of
the “Berega” - a defensive system created along the Oka from Kolomna to
Kaluga to repel Tatar raids. In 1492, “the Totarovs came to Ukraine to
the Oleksinsky places.”
During the period of formation and
strengthening of a single centralized Russian state, Aleksin was the
location of the grand ducal “regiment of the right hand.” In 1566, it
was assigned to the personal possessions of Ivan IV the Terrible, as a
result of which it became the only city on the right bank of the Oka
that was included in the oprichnina.
During the Time of Troubles
at the beginning of the 17th century, Aleksin took part in events
related to the uprising of I. I. Bolotnikov of 1606-1607. Taking the
side of the rebels, the city was taken by storm by the troops of Vasily
Shuisky on July 29, 1607. Then it was subjected to new devastation by
the Polish-Lithuanian invaders.
By the early 1650s, only about
450 people lived in Aleksin.
In 1728, near Aleksin on the Myshega
River, the Mosolov brothers built the first ironworks, which later
acquired the name “Tyazhpromarmatura”.
On July 13, 1768, the city
almost completely burned down. After the fire, regular construction
began to take shape there.
In 1777, Aleksin received the official
status of a district town of the Aleksinsky district of the Tula
governorate (since 1796 - the Tula province).
The city began to
actively develop in the 19th-20th centuries, when it became the center
of the sawmill and metallurgical industry, and also after the
construction of the Kaluga-Tula railway in the mid-19th century. In
1873, the Myshega plant built a water supply system to compensate for
the losses caused to the city.
In 1891, A.P. Chekhov vacationed
in Aleksin, where his brother worked as a tax inspector, at one of the
“Kovrigin dachas,” from where he went to visit L.N. Tolstoy, and L.
Mizinova and I. Levitan. In May of the same year he moved to an estate
in the village. Bogimovo west of Aleksin.
On January 18 (31),
1918, Soviet power was established in Aleksin and Aleksinsky district.
In 1924, during the zoning of the Tula province, four districts
(enlarged volosts) were formed in the Aleksinsky district: Aleksinsky,
Nenashevsky, Popovsky and Serpukhovsky; at the same time, Aleksin became
the center of the Aleksinsky district (later the districts were
consolidated). On December 1, 1924, the Aleksinsky district was
abolished, and the Aleksinsky district came under provincial
subordination. In 1929, the Tula province was transformed into the Tula
district of the newly formed Central Industrial (from June 3 - Moscow)
region; however, on August 21, 1930, the Tula District was liquidated,
and the Aleksinsky District became directly subordinate to the Moscow
Region. Finally, on September 26, 1937, by a resolution of the Central
Executive Committee of the USSR, the Tula Region was separated from the
Moscow Region, into which Aleksin and the Aleksinsky District were
transferred.
In 1933, the government decided to build a chemical
plant (plant No. 100) in the Moscow region, which included Aleksin. On
March 27, 1941, the first thermal power plant was put into operation,
and at the end of May, workshop No. 3 of plant No. 100 was put into
operation.
During the Great Patriotic War
During the Great Patriotic War, Aleksin played an important strategic role. On October 14, 1941, after the German troops occupied Kaluga, the 238th Infantry Division was transferred to the area of the city of Aleksin to defend it and prevent a breakthrough on the Moscow-Tula road. German troops managed to occupy the city for a while, but it was liberated on December 17, 1941.
After the Great Patriotic War
On July 12, 1958, by decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of
the RSFSR, the city of Aleksin was classified as a city of regional
subordination; At the same time, the working villages of Vysokoye,
Myshega and Petrovsky were included in the city limits.
The
city's heyday came in the 1970s, when the Chemical Combine reached its
greatest development, becoming the largest producer of gunpowder. During
this period, the Bor microdistrict was built up and the Zhalka park was
opened in the Gorushka microdistrict. The Myshega plant was reoriented
to produce shut-off valves for the oil and gas industry.
On
January 11, 2011, the old bridge over the Oka River was opened after
reconstruction, and car traffic in Aleksin began to flow along two
bridge spans.
Climate
The climate is moderate continental, characterized by well-defined seasons: moderately warm summers and moderately cold winters. The average temperature in January is −7.0°C, in July +18.3°C. The warm period (with a positive average daily temperature) lasts 220-225 days. The lowest temperature was observed in January 1940 (Kolosovo village), dropping to −48.5°C, the highest according to observations from the M-2 Aleksin meteorological station was +38.9°C on August 2, 2010. The first frosts are observed at the end of September, the last - in early May. The frost-free period is on average 140 days. Snow cover is established in mid-November, disappears in mid-April, remains for about 140 days, reaching its greatest height (on average 36 cm) in February - March. The depth of soil freezing is up to 1.5 m. From November to February, winds from the south and southeast prevail. From April to September the wind regime is unstable, with a slight predominance of southern and western directions. The average annual wind speed is 2.9 m/s. Atmospheric precipitation is distributed more or less evenly throughout the year. Annual precipitation for the period 1981–2010. is 653.4 mm. The average annual relative humidity is 79%.
Culture
In 2021, the city became the location for the filming of the film “The First Oscar” directed by Sergei Mokritsky, which tells the story of the feat of front-line documentary directors Leonid Varlamov and Ilya Kopalin, whose documentary “The Defeat of German Troops near Moscow” received the first Oscar in the history of the Soviet Union.