Belyov is a city in Russia, the administrative center of the Belevsky district of the Tula region. Forms the eponymous municipality of the city of Belyov with the status of an urban settlement as the only settlement in its composition. Population - 12 597 people. (2020).
Temple architecture
1 Spaso-Preobrazhensky Monastery. XVII-XIX
centuries
2 Women’s Holy Cross Monastery.
Monuments
3 Glory to the Belevites, heroes of the Soviet Union.
4 For the
independence of the country.
5 Stela in memory of those who died for
their homeland in the Second World War.
6 In memory of the Belevites
- liquidators of the consequences of the Chernobyl accident.
7 Monument to V.I. Lenin.
8 Monument to S.M. Kirov.
9 Bust of
A.S. Pushkin.
10 Bust of V.A. Zhukovsky.
11 Monument to L.N.
Tolstoy, Station Square.
1 Belevsky District Museum of Art and Local Lore , st. Karla
Marksa, 114. ☎ (48742) 4-3295. Tue-Sat 10.00-17.00.
2 Belyovsky
Center of Culture and Tourism , Sovetskaya, 34. ☎ +7 (48742) 4-10-39.
By train
The Belyov railway station is located on the non-mainline
single-track Kozelsk-Gorbachevo branch. There is a diesel locomotive
connection with Kozelsk twice a day and once a day with Sukhinichi.
Station (Privokzalnaya Square).
By car
The city is located
at the intersection of the P92 Kaluga-Oryol and P139 Tula-Belev
highways.
By bus
The city's bus station provides regular
communication with Moscow, Tula, Orel, Suvorov, Kaluga and populated
areas of the region.
Bus station, Rabochaya st., 128. ☎ +7
(48742) 4-15-59.
Belyovskaya pastila
1 Cafe Old Town, st. Rabochaya no. 96. ☎ +7 (919) 07-07-868.
2 Cafe Loft, Revolution Square, 2,. ☎ +7 (909) 263-41-09.
3 Cafe
Inter, Oktyabrskaya st., 5. ☎ +7 (910) 163-64-45.
1 Hotel Old Town, st. Rabochaya no. 96. ☎ +7 (48742) 4-26-92, +7
(919) 07-07-868.
2 BEL HOTEL, pl. Revolutions d.2. ☎ +7 (4872)
52-51-05.
3 Hotel of the Pilgrimage Center, st. Beloslavskaya 7. ☎
+7 915 789-11-29.
Belyov is located on the left bank of the Oka, 114 km south-west of Tula, 105 km south of Kaluga and 101 km north of Orel at the intersection of highways P92 and P139.
Presumably, a fortified craft and trade center on the site of Belev
arose in the 8th-9th centuries. The beginning of the history of the
urban settlement dates back to the 9th-10th centuries, when, according
to archaeologists, several Vyatichi settlements existed on its current
territory on the banks of the Oka. The oldest settlement, called the
“old settlement” in documents, was located on the right bank of the
Belevka ravine, on a hill above the mouth of the Belyovka River, at its
confluence with the Oka.
The city of Belev was mentioned for the
first time in the Ipatiev Chronicle in 1147 in connection with the
internecine struggle of Svyatoslav Olgovich and his ally Yuri Dolgoruky
with the Kyiv Grand Duke Izyaslav Mstislavich and his allies the
Davidovichs.
In the 12th century the city belonged to the Chernigov princes. After
the death of Prince Mikhail of Chernigov in the Horde in 1246, the
Glukhovo-Novosilsk lands, including Belyov, passed to his youngest son
Semyon Mikhailovich. One of his great-grandsons, Roman Semyonovich
Novosilsky, gave Belev as an inheritance to his eldest son Vasily
Romanovich, who became the first Prince Belevsky during his father’s
lifetime in the first quarter of the 15th century. The deep river and
roads contributed to the development of crafts and trade, which led to
the expansion of the city.
Since the 13th century, references to
the Belyov fortress, which became the core of the princely Belyov,
appear in chronicles. This fortress was of the cape type, it was
surrounded by an earthen rampart with a wooden wall, separated by a moat
from the settlement. The presence of a fortified rampart and a ditch
along the princely detinets is also confirmed by letters of grant from
the 17th century. Unable to survive independently among its stronger
neighbors, the principality periodically entered into an alliance either
with the Principality of Moscow or with the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.
Vassal dependence and the incessant raids of the Tatars forced the
princes to strengthen the city in the 14th-15th centuries.
At the
same time, Belev is mentioned in the chronicle in connection with the
destructive event of 1437, when Khan Ulu-Muhammad was expelled from the
Golden Horde. He asked the Moscow prince to stay on his land in order to
gather strength and return to the Horde. Vasily Vasilyevich the Dark
ordered to receive the khan as a guest, and gave him Belev to stay.
Ulu-Muhamed managed to build an ice fortress near the city. It seemed to
Moscow that the khan wanted to strengthen himself and capture the city,
and an army of forty thousand was sent to Belev, but due to betrayal in
the Russian camp and with the support of Lithuania, the Russian troops
were defeated. After the victory, Ulu-Muhammad burned the city and
destroyed it to the ground. Attacks and robberies of the Crimean Tatars
in Belyov also occurred during the campaigns of 1507, 1512 and 1544.
The Belev princes restored the city, and in the 15th century, under
Prince Ivan Vasilyevich, Belev finally fell under the rule of Moscow.
Before the death of Ivan III, the Belyov princes minted their own money,
but, according to his spiritual charter, the appanage princes were
deprived of such a right. At the beginning of the 16th century, Belev
became one of the strongholds in the defense system of the Moscow
kingdom. A new well-fortified fortress was built opposite the old
princely fortress-Detinets and the adjacent settlement. The Belev
princes took part in the military campaigns of Vasily III in 1512
against the Ugra and in 1513 against Smolensk. In 1536, not far from
Belev, near the village of Temryan, the voivode Semyon Levshin, the
ancestor of Vasily Levshin, successfully repelled the attack of the
Crimean Tatars.
In the 16th century, a voivode's house, an office
and a prison hut were built in the Belevskaya fortress. The majority of
the city's population were service people who lived in the settlement.
During the reforms of Ivan the Terrible, Belev was among 27 cities
with volosts taken into the oprichnina lands. In 1558, Ivan the Terrible
exiled Prince Ivan Ivanovich Belevsky to Vologda, where he died. The
line of the Belyov princes was interrupted there, and the principality
ceased to exist. By that time, all the settlements were already included
in the settlement, so the territory of Belyov increased several times.
From the second half of the 16th century, the Belevskaya fortress
began to enter the abatis on the southern outskirts of the Russian
state. In the city itself, governors often changed, and the population
became poorer. From 1558 to 1561, Belev and the district were in the
employ of the Volyn magnate Dmitry Vishnevsky. Monasteries enjoyed a
privileged position, to which the pious Ivan the Terrible granted lands,
people and privileges. In 1563 and 1566, when he came to inspect the
borders, the tsar visited the Belevskaya fortress and the
Transfiguration Monastery, which received the exclusive right to cross
the Oka and to fish in the Belev area. The tsar also obliged the abbots
of the monastery to commemorate the Belyov princes every day, and on the
day of their death to serve conciliarly and distribute alms.
In
1606, different layers of Belev residents joined the uprising of Ivan
Bolotnikov. After the appearance of False Dmitry II, Belev and several
other cities recognized him as king. Vasily Shuisky, who took the Moscow
throne in 1606, declared the city rebellious and sent troops there. In
1611, during the retreat of False Dmitry II, who burned all the cities
on his way, more than 2,000 soldiers from the Moscow militia were sent
to help Belev in order to preserve the city as a fortress, part of the
country’s defensive line. The Polish raids that continued after the Time
of Troubles prompted the strengthening of the southwestern borders. The
Belyov Fortress was strengthened three times, and the entire former
princely Kremlin was occupied by the Spaso-Preobrazhensky Monastery.
In the second half of the 17th century, a road to Ukraine was built
through Belyov, the first post office appeared and a water supply system
with wooden pipes was installed.
At the end of the 17th century,
a reorganization of the armed forces of the Russian kingdom took place.
The military, who made up a significant segment of the population of
Belyov, stopped quartering in the city, and the army began to be located
in specially organized units outside the city. Many residents of that
time were engaged in marquiting - providing for the army. At the same
time, trade in salt, bread, metal, wood and furs generated great
turnover.
The next stage of Belev’s development was in the 18th century under
Peter I, when the external defensive lines of the state expanded and the
city found itself deep in the rear of the country. In addition to the
navigable river, postal routes to Moscow and Little Russia were
established here, and inns and taverns appeared. In 1719, the remains of
the fortress, which lost its former importance due to the advance of the
state’s borders to the south, were destroyed by a large fire and were
never restored. In the same year, by decree of Peter I, Belev and its
district were assigned to the Oryol province of the Kyiv province. In
1722, the Belevsky City Magistrate was opened, replacing the Zemskaya
Izba and in charge of the administration and trial of the townspeople.
In 1727, Belev and his district, as part of the Oryol province, entered
the Belgorod province, separated from the Kyiv province. In 1761, a
“Russian school” was opened at the Spaso-Preobrazhensky Monastery, which
marked the beginning of spiritual education in Belyov. In the 1770s, the
production and processing of raw materials increased for further
supplies to Moscow, St. Petersburg, Riga and Nizhny Novgorod.
In
1777, Belyov became a district town of the Belevsky district of the Tula
governorate, and from 1796 - the Tula province. According to a charter
granted to the cities dated April 21, 1785, a six-vote City Duma was
established in Belyov, and the Belyov 1st Guild merchant I. G. Dorofeev
was elected the first mayor of the city. By the end of the 18th century,
Belev became the second largest city in the province, and four-fifths of
the population began to consist of merchants and townspeople. If at the
beginning of the 18th century there was not a single stone building in
Belyov, then by the 1770s 10 out of 15 churches in the city were already
made of stone, three stone chapels and stone civil buildings in the
settlement also appeared. In 1778, the city's coat of arms appeared,
drawn up at the beginning of the 18th century by Count Franz Santi based
on information sent about Belev from the provincial chancellery. The
report reported about a large fire that occurred shortly before sending
information about the city; the fire destroyed “many households of
Posatsk people”, and also “the entire log castle burned down.” Perhaps
that is why a flame appeared on Belev’s coat of arms.
In 1779, a
new general plan for the development of the city with a regular system
of wide straight streets was drawn up and approved, the implementation
of which was carried out for the next hundred years. In the second half
of the 19th century, Belev became a center for trade and processing of
many agricultural products. 1,500 ships a year passed by it on the Oka
River, and about 50 departed from the city itself. The population of
Belyov by that time was 6 thousand inhabitants, of which 5 thousand were
merchants and townspeople. More than a hundred stone houses were built
in the city, including a hospital, almshouses, four educational
institutions, a theater and a library. In 1799, by decree of Paul I, the
Tula diocese was formed, and Belev was elevated to the status of the
second cathedral city of the diocese.
On May 4, 1826, in Belyov,
while traveling from Taganrog, the Russian Empress Elizaveta Alekseevna,
the wife of Emperor Alexander I, died. Now the district police
department is located in the building where the Empress died. On May 4,
1829, during his trip to the Caucasus, Alexander Pushkin passed through
Belyov. On July 19-20, 1837, while traveling around Russia, the heir to
the throne, Tsarevich Alexander Nikolaevich, the future Emperor
Alexander II, stopped in Belyov.
On December 27, 1858, the first
district public library in the Tula province was opened in the city. V.
A. Zhukovsky. The pace of development of the city slowed down greatly in
the 1860s, when the economic potential was transferred to the cities
located along the route of the built railway from Moscow to Kursk, which
passed Belyov. Despite this, the city remained second in the province in
industrial terms. Belev, along with Tula, was a city with craft
associations, where there were seven craft shops: blacksmithing,
carpentry, hemp, tailoring, shoemaking, kalachny and icon painting. In
1888, a major industrialist and merchant Ambrosy Prokhorov opened the
production of layered Belyovskaya (“Prokhorovskaya”) marshmallows in
Belyov. At the same time, the folk craft of Belyov lace—weaving with
bobbins—became widespread. The city is also famous for its apple
marshmallow, made from baked Antonovka apples since 1888. Pastila is
made both by artisanal methods by local residents and by industrial
methods.
In 1899, a branch of the Smolensk Railway passed through
the city. By the beginning of the 20th century, the city had five
factories, a steam mill, 16 educational institutions, water supply and
20 km of paved roads. In 1910, the “Museum of Educational and Visual
Aids” opened in Belyov (now the “P.V. Zhukovsky Museum of Art and Local
Lore.” The basis of its collection are items purchased at the
agricultural exhibition and exhibition of educational and visual aids
held in the city. The first trustee of the museum was Pavel Zhukovsky,
the son of the poet Vasily Zhukovsky, who was born near Belev.
Soviet power in Belyov and the district was established at the end of
1917 - beginning of 1918. The Constituent Assembly was dissolved and the
Belevsky district committee of the RCP (b) was created. In the first
years of Soviet power, counter-revolutionary protests and kulak riots
were frequent. In subsequent years, most of the pre-revolutionary street
names in Belyov were renamed. Bolshaya Kozelskaya Street, which ran
through the entire city, became Karl Marx Street, Bolshaya Kaluzhskaya
Street - Sovetskaya, Yegoryevskaya (Georgievskaya) Street - Lenin,
Mironositskaya Street - Pervomaiskaya, etc. In 1924, the city became the
center of the formed Belyovsky District.
On October 24, 1941,
Belev was occupied by Nazi troops. Industry, agriculture, cultural
institutions, residential buildings and hospitals, public utility
enterprises were destroyed, and the city park was cut down for firewood.
On December 31, 1941, Belev was liberated, but the front line was only
8-10 kilometers from the city. In the spring of 1942, the battles near
Belev as part of the Bolkhov operation were among the most fierce in the
Tula region, during which more than 12 thousand people died. The
offensive ended unsuccessfully and was not mentioned in Soviet
historiography. After the war, the restoration of the city began, new
enterprises in the heavy, light and food industries appeared.
In
the mid-twentieth century, many historical and architectural monuments
were destroyed, among which churches suffered the most. In 1970, Belev
was included in the number of monument cities, and therefore restoration
of some temples began, but most were never completed.
In 1986,
Belev and the surrounding area fell into the zone of radioactive
contamination after the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant.
The city's main enterprises, built during the Soviet era, were closed
in the 1990s. Financial flows did not fall into the budgets of cities;
buildings, both former industrial complexes and residential and
cultural, became dilapidated. There was an outflow of population, and
there was a shortage of qualified personnel.
In 2005, the coat of
arms of the Belevsky district was approved, based on the historical coat
of arms of Belev of the 18th century.
On May 7, 2014, in honor of
the 69th anniversary of the victory in the Great Patriotic War, the
Eternal Flame was lit in the Memory Square, pieces of which were brought
from all over the Tula region, as well as from Moscow. On December 4,
2015, the city of Belev was awarded the honorary title “City of Military
Valor.”
The key problems of the city remain the low level of
material and technical base of educational institutions, insufficient
technical support of the city's medical institutions with modern medical
and office equipment, the obsolescence of the material and technical
base of the cultural sector, and the lack of highly qualified
specialists.