Pskov is a city (since 903) in the north-west of
Russia, the administrative center of the Pskov region and the Pskov
district. It forms the urban district of Pskov located on the Great
River at its confluence with the Pskova River.
Pskov is one
of the oldest cities in Russia, first mentioned in the Laurentian
Chronicle under the year 903. In the years 1348-1510 - the capital
of the independent Pskov Republic. In 1510 it was attached to the
Grand Duchy of Moscow. Until the beginning of the 18th century,
Pskov was one of the largest cities in Russia and Europe, the most
important defensive and commercial center of the country. The Pskov
fortress consisted of five fortress rings (three of which are
preserved to this day), which made Pskov almost impregnable.
Throughout its centuries-old history, Pskov has more than once
become the center for conducting major hostilities, but was taken
only once, not counting the occupation during both world wars. After
the founding of St. Petersburg, Pskov lost its dominant position on
the western frontiers of the country, and after the Northern War,
the borders shifted far to the west and Riga and Revel (now Tallinn)
moved away from Russia, the value of Pskov as a trading and defense
center finally fell. During World War II, the city was occupied by
Germany for three years, during which time 3.5 thousand civilians
were killed. In December 2009, Pskov was awarded the title "City of
Military Glory."
The population of the city - 210 501 people.
(2018).
Pskov is an important tourist center of the Pskov
region and northwest Russia. Trinity Cathedral, Pskov Fortress,
Mirozhsky Monastery, Pogankin Chamber, a number of ancient churches
of Pskov are included in the list of the cultural heritage of the
Russian Federation. The city is also a major transportation hub, it
is located at the intersection of railways and major highways.
Developed a network of urban buses.
The city is located on both sides of the Velikaya
River at the confluence of the Pskov River. Almost all the main
attractions are located in three historical districts, which are
bordered by these two rivers. The central part of the city includes the
territory inside the walls of the Round City, bounded by Velikaya and
Pskovaya, Zapskovye (locals have long emphasized the first syllable)
include the area on the right bank of the Pskov, and Zavelichye is
located on the left bank of the Velikaya.
The banks of the Great
are connected by three bridges. The Olginsky Bridge passes near the
Kremlin, connecting the main street of the right bank - Oktyabrsky
Prospekt, with the main Zavelichya highway - Rizhsky Prospekt. Two more
bridges - the 50th anniversary of October and Alexander Nevsky - are
respectively upstream and downstream of the Great. The main monuments of
Zapskovye are concentrated on the main street of the district, named
after the hero of the Soviet era - Leon Pozemsky. She goes to the bridge
over Pskov, the closest to its mouth (above the Kremlin). Relatively few
monuments of Zavelichya are located not far from Velikaya (Mirozhsky
Monastery is near the bridge located upstream), and the central part of
the city can be fully explored only by systematically combing its
territory.
The railway and bus stations are nearby, about half an
hour walk from the Kremlin (you can get there by bus).
The construction of the Pskov fortress began,
apparently, shortly after the attack of the Polotsk prince Rogvolod in
977 around the first settlements of the Krivichi, located either on a
high hill between Pskovskaya and Velikaya, or on Gorodets, a small hill
located south of Dovmontov city, now Soviet Square. The population of
the city grew, gradually populating the territory of the Sredny and
Okolny city, and after it the fortress was overgrown with new defensive
belts of walls, towers and ramparts, the last of which was the wall of
the Round City, completed only in the 16th century. The city
fortifications were last updated by Peter I in anticipation of a Swedish
attack during the Great Northern War.
The territory within the
walls of the Round City was inhabited already in the 12th-13th
centuries, although at first it was characterized by a low building
density. Low wooden structures were concentrated around the main city
highways already established at that time, branching off from the Old
Market on Gorodets - Velikaya (now Sovetskaya), Trupekhovskaya
(Oktyabrsky Prospekt), Petrovskaya (Karl Marx Street) and Zvanitsa (Leon
Pozemsky Street). Already in these early wooden buildings, a
characteristic feature of Pskov architecture was manifested - the
ability to link many separate buildings into a single asymmetrical
composition.
The first stone buildings appeared in Pskov in the
second half of the 12th century. Among them are the Cathedral of the
Mirozhsky Monastery and the second Trinity Cathedral. Perhaps, the
Ivanovsky Monastery Cathedral should be added to this list, there is no
consensus on the date of construction of which - the XII or XIII
century. All of them were far from what was later called the Pskov
architectural style, and copied contemporary churches from other places.
As an independent architectural style, the Pskov school developed in the
second half of the 14th century and continued to be enriched with new
finds until the end of the 17th century. She perfected her techniques in
the first half of the 14th century during the construction of the
Konchan temples (the ends were called the unit of the administrative
division of the city) and a huge number of monasteries. Practical
expediency was put at the forefront in Pskov architecture, and artistic
expressiveness was achieved by a set of simple means with a minimum of
decor.
The main type of Pskov temple in the 15th-16th centuries
was a three-apse cubic structure with one dome resting on four pillars.
The first temples of this type had a cover of sixteen slopes, but with
the simplification of the design of the vaults, a very effective
eight-slope cover arose. In the XIV-XV centuries, the composition of the
temples began to be supplemented with aisles, narthexes, galleries and
belfries. Asymmetric compositions were built from these volumes, in
which the belfries were displaced from the axis of the temple, the
dimensions of their pillars and spans were not aligned, the aisles were
set deliberately asymmetrically, and the chapels were arranged at random
angles. At the beginning of the 16th century, free-standing belfries on
high pillar-like structures came into use. Their appearance was
explained both by the increase in the mass of the bells and by the need
to raise them above the city growing upwards. Another detail of the
Pskov style was the stone porches protruding from the volume of
buildings. They appeared in the civil architecture of the 17th century,
but soon began to be used as a new decorative element in the
reconstruction of old temples.
The traditional forms of
decoration of Pskov churches were formed already in the 15th century and
then hardly changed. Among them is the famous three-row ornamental belt
on apses and drums, consisting of two curbs with a runner in the middle,
and in the 16th century, tiled belts and inscriptions on drums entered
the arsenal of decorative means. The apses were decorated with roller
patterns, and the facades were divided by blades with blades at the
ends. All these simple and not laborious elements used the specific
properties of local limestone slabs and were used to decorate almost all
Pskov churches.
Stone civil architecture also developed in the
16th century. Its application was the monastic refectories, fraternal
buildings and merchant stone chambers, consisting of storage rooms on
the first floor and living rooms on the second. For the most part, these
buildings were not lucky: they quickly fell into disrepair after their
owners, wealthy merchants, were deported to Moscow in 1569.
The
heyday of stone civil construction falls on the 17th century, when more
than one hundred stone merchant chambers were built in the city,
although the wooden houses of poor citizens still dominated. During the
century, the forms of residential stone buildings have undergone very
noticeable changes. Massive five-story chambers of the first half of the
century were gradually replaced by more comfortable and smaller
two-story buildings. In the last third of the 17th century, the chambers
acquired a very complex three-dimensional composition, including the
famous Pskov massive porches. There were also industrial buildings made
of stone, distinguished by their extreme simplicity and functionality.
The civil buildings of Pskov were made of a very thick and durable
local slab, had an unusually large wall thickness (up to 2 meters),
their facades usually had neither horizontal nor vertical division, and
the windows were located only in the upper floors of buildings and, most
often, without any rhythmic pattern. Almost under all the old houses
there were deep cellars covered with massive vaults. In ancient times,
water ditches with drawbridges were often made around buildings, so that
they turned into well-fortified fortresses.
Pskov of the 17th
century remained a city of a completely different layout and scale than
modern Pskov. From the geometry of the ancient city, only the main
streets have come down to us, and the dimensions of the old quarters,
streets and courtyards have nothing in common with today's city. In the
17th century, the now empty spaces between the old churches were
occupied by many residential buildings and courtyards. Everything
changed in the 18th century, the beginning of which turned into
preparations for the Northern War, which paralyzed the life of the city.
The expansion of the state's borders that followed after the war and the
opening of new trade routes deprived Pskov of its former commercial
significance, gradually turning it into a provincial town. Fires and
epidemics gave rise to wastelands on the site of a recently dense
building. The end of the 18th-century replanning project of the city by
I. Leim completed the work, the purpose of which was to create an
aesthetic order in the spirit of the new time by replacing old
buildings.
During the Great Patriotic War, Pskov was severely
destroyed, and, in fact, only after the war did the restoration of the
ancient architectural heritage of the city begin, which has not been
completed to this day.
Pskov has a great variety of all sorts of
wonderful monuments. If you choose the most interesting among them,
then, of course, you can’t miss the Pskov Krom - the core of the
ancient fortress, in which the Trinity Cathedral of the 17th century
reigns - the main architectural dominant of the city, attracting the
eye even from remote points of the city.
Of the many
monasteries in the city, only two complete ensembles have survived -
Mirozhsky and Snetogorsky monasteries. But they are interesting,
first of all, for their frescoes. In the Cathedral of the
Transfiguration of the Savior of the Mirozhsky Monastery, there are
the only pre-Mongolian frescoes of the 12th century in the country
in terms of the degree of preservation, and in the cathedral of the
Snetogorsky Monastery you can see slightly later and worse preserved
frescoes of the 14th century.
The Pskov fortress in ancient
times was the only one in Rus' in terms of size, power and beauty,
and therefore deserves special attention. The fortifications are
well preserved and include Krom, the walls of the Dovmont city and
the last fortress wall encircling the Roundabout city and the
ancient part of Zapskovye.
Perhaps the strongest impression
of Pskov remains when you get acquainted with its church
architecture. There are not many cities in Russia where in a small
area you can find more than two dozen stone churches that appeared
no later than the 16th century. Remarkable in their simplicity and
conciseness, the one-domed Pskov churches with four-slope or amazing
eight-slope roofs are distinguished by a well-thought-out asymmetry
of narthexes and aisles. Massive porches, free-standing or placed on
the side wall of the belfry, belts in the upper part of the apses
and drums - all these are signs by which Pskov churches can be
easily recognized. If there is no time to inspect all the Pskov
churches, and they certainly deserve it, then you can limit yourself
to a few of the most outstanding monuments - the Cathedral of John
the Baptist (1240) in Zavelichye, as well as the churches of Peter
and Paul from the Buy (1373), St. Nicholas on Usokhe ( 1536), Vasily
on Gorka (XVI century), Assumption at the Ferry (1521) and Epiphany
in Zapskovye (1494).
And, finally, in Pskov you can find many
monuments of civil architecture, including several chambers of the
17th century, although not all of them are in satisfactory
condition. The best preserved among them are Pogankin's chambers,
where you can get acquainted with the internal structure of ancient
buildings.
The city also has a fair amount of monuments of
the 18th-20th centuries. But only a very meticulous tourist, who is
ready to spend several days exploring the city, will get to the
point of studying them.
The Pskov fortress
had several defensive lines, among which Krom was the most fortified
- this is how the Pskovians called the central part of the fortress
from ancient times. Located on an impregnable hill, Krom is
protected from enemies by powerful stone walls erected on the banks
of two rivers - Pskov and Velikaya.
The second defensive belt
of the fortress is the wall of the city of Dovmont adjoining Krom
from the south. From the next two walls - the walls of the posadnik
Boris (1309) and the walls of the Middle City (1375) - almost
nothing has been preserved. The first one ran along the line of
modern Profsoyuznaya Street and rounded off to the Pskov River near
the Church of Peter and Paul from the Buy, the second went from the
Mstislav Tower (1375) along the modern Pushkin Street, leaving on
Pskov opposite the modern Church of the Epiphany in Zapskovye. The
last belt of fortifications, almost completely preserved to this
day, form the walls of Zapskovye and the Roundabout city.
At
one time, the Pskov fortress was the largest in Rus': its walls were
more than 9 kilometers long, covering an area of 215 hectares.
Krom stands on a high cliff, its western wall
stretches along the Velikaya River, and the eastern one along Pskov.
In the breaks of the fortress walls there are towers: Smerdya
(Dovmontov) and Kutekroma (Kutnyaya) - above the Great, Sredny
(Snetnaya) and Troitskaya (Sentry) - above Pskov. Between the
Trinity and Smerdya towers, devoid of a natural water barrier, and
therefore the least protected part of the fortress, called the
Persians (or Pershes), lies. Until the 12th century, the fortress
had only one passage gate at the Smerdya Tower, and at the end of
the 12th century, the Trinity or Great Gates were broken through -
the only entrance to Krom in our time. Once in the fortress there
were two impassable gates overlooking Pskov: Small Troitsky - not
far from the Trinity Tower and the "gate" - between the Middle Tower
and Kutekroma. The latter were located opposite the pier and served
to deliver supplies.
The chronicles do not report anything
about the date of the construction of the walls of Krom.
Archaeologists distinguish three pre-chronic stages of their
construction: wooden walls on the shaft of the 8th-10th centuries;
stone walls without mortar along the inner side of the rampart of
the 10th-13th centuries and, finally, stone walls of the 13th
century bonded with mortar on the outer side of the rampart.
Chronicles say that the first tower of Krom was Smerdya, together
with the walls of Krom it existed already in the 30s of the XIV
century. Trinity and Kutnyaya towers appeared in 1400–1401, the
Middle Tower finally took shape in 1419. Percy was renewed several
times - in 1337, in 1424 and 1465. In 1424, first a wooden, and then
a stone bell tower was installed in Persia, which has not survived
to our time. On it were placed the bells of the Trinity Cathedral
and the veche bell, taken to Moscow in 1510 as a sign of the loss of
independence by Pskov.
In 1861-1871, Perseus was restored
according to the design of Konstantin Ton. It was then that the
powerful and round Smerdya tower turned into a small faceted turret,
which received a new name - the Dovmontov Tower. The Trinity Gates
were also rebuilt. During the restoration of recent years, the
Tonovsky gates were rebuilt, and together with them the Trinity
Tower, which had not existed since the 18th century, was erected
from the ground.
In the 15th century, a zahab appeared at the
Trinity Gate on the inside of Krom - a narrow passage fired from
above - which greatly complicated the life of the attackers: having
taken the outer gate, the enemy was forced to storm the inner ones,
and all this - under continuous fire from the walls of the zakhab.
Contrary to the practice of the time, the zahab was curved, making
it completely pointless to shoot inside it.
Krom welcomes its
guests with a grandiose spectacle - over the almost deserted space
of the former veche square rises the stunning and, by Pskov
standards, very young Trinity Cathedral 1 . The fourth in a row on
this site, the cathedral of the late 17th century is made in the
traditions of Moscow architecture, but harmoniously fits into the
internal ensemble of the fortress. Its predecessors were a wooden
church of the end of the 10th century, according to legend, founded
by Princess Olga before the Baptism of Rus', and two stone
structures of the 12th and 14th centuries. The first stone cathedral
was erected in 1137-1138 (according to other sources in the 1180s or
1190s) and existed until the collapse of the vaults in 1363. A new
cathedral was founded on the same foundation in 1365. Judging by the
image that has come down to us, it was a temple with a powerful main
volume, crowned with an unusual elliptical dome. The cathedral was
covered with a sixteen-slope roof and had six aisles surrounding the
main volume of the building. This cathedral was badly damaged by the
fire of 1562 and the explosion of gunpowder stores in Krom in 1609.
Therefore, in 1682, a new five-domed Trinity Cathedral was laid,
towering over Pskov to this day.
The year of consecration of
the fourth Trinity Cathedral is considered to be 1699, but in fact
at that moment its construction was still ongoing. The cathedral
survived several fires and restorations. In 1770, after another
fire, galleries of the lower floor were laid to strengthen the walls
and buttresses were attached to them. In the 19th century, the porch
of the 17th century with steep steps was replaced with a more gentle
one, from which it moved close to the fortress wall. Initially, the
domes of the cathedral had a silver color, and the central dome was
first gilded only in 1852. On the occasion of the 1000th anniversary
of the Baptism of Rus', the gilding on the central dome was again
restored, and the rest of the domes were covered with copper that
darkened over time.
Like all Pskov churches, the Trinity
Cathedral is made of limestone slabs. As a rule, the surface of
chipped slabs was left untreated, which, thanks to the play of
chiaroscuro, gave the illusion of a stucco surface. The Trinity
Cathedral was built of hewn slabs, which gave its facades geometric
regularity, and to enliven its smooth surfaces, discreet relief
decor was used in the form of a belt of widths with colored tiles, a
cornice under the roof and ending with arches of blades. The drums
of the cathedral are processed with shoulder blades and platbands in
a style close to the early Petrine baroque.
Inside, the white
walls of the cathedral were not originally painted (the existing
painting of the vaults and drums appeared later) and its only
decoration was a giant seven-tiered iconostasis of the turn of the
17th-18th centuries with the upper tiers of the late 18th-early 19th
centuries. The iconostasis has come down to us almost in its
original form, and the gilded carving used to frame it is not
inferior in value to icon painting. There are several ancient icons
in the cathedral: "Our Lady of Chir" of the 15th century, "Trinity"
of the 16th century and two icons of Our Lady of Tikhvin. Near the
northern wall there is a huge mosaic icon "Trinity", made in 1942 by
the artist E.E. Klimov. The basement of the temple used to serve as
a tomb, first of the Pskov princes, and then of its saints. Now it
houses a church with a new iconostasis, and the tombs of their
ancestors have gone under the floor.
The bell tower was built
immediately after the Trinity Cathedral on the massive foundation of
the unpreserved Kremlin tower. You can fully appreciate its size
only from the Sovetsky Bridge or from the opposite bank of Pskov,
from where a magnificent view of Krom opens. The bell tower was
built by local craftsmen and looks older than the cathedral due to
the uneven masonry characteristic of the Pskov style. Some
disharmony of the lower part of the bell tower and its "Peter's"
spire is explained by its later appearance: the spire, the ringing
tiers, and the tower clock appeared only at the end of the 18th
century, replacing the burned-out wooden top. On the bell tower
there are several ancient bells of the 16th century with the dates
of manufacture and the names of the masters who cast them.
Stretching from one wall to another, the Trinity Cathedral divides
Krom into two unequal parts with the only passage between them - an
arch under the cathedral staircase. On the southern side of the
cathedral there is a deserted space - the former veche square. On
all images of Krom of the 16th-18th centuries, the single-domed
Annunciation Cathedral is shown next to the Smerdya Tower, and its
first mention dates back to 1485. In the 1830s, a new Annunciation
Cathedral was erected, which was demolished a century later. Right
next to Perseus, from the 16th century, there was a wooden Vladychen
yard, which burned down in 1788. And earlier in its place there was
a powder warehouse, which died in the fire of a terrible fire in
1562.
A large area on the north side of the cathedral is now
almost empty: there are powder magazines and a clergy house.
However, the findings of archaeologists say that it was from this
territory that the settlement of Pskov began in the 2nd-3rd
centuries AD. Later, already in the time of Krom, this territory was
well guarded and used to store food supplies, valuable property and
merchant goods, and later as a gunpowder warehouse. By the way, the
Kutekroma tower is clearly visible from here. According to legend,
A.S. admired the views from it. Pushkin, who came to Pskov from
Mikhailovsky.
The next defensive line of
the fortress was the walls of the so-called Dovmont city adjacent to
the southern part of Krom, the creation of which is attributed to
the Lithuanian prince Dovmont, baptized Timothy, who reigned in
Pskov from 1266 to 1299. In the 10th century, craftsmen lived on the
territory of the Dovmontov city, and Torg was also located there,
under the walls of Krom, which in the 13th century left the walls of
the Dovmontov city. With the advent of the walls of the Roundabout
city of Dovmontov, the city lost its defensive significance and in
the 17th century civil structures appeared on its territory - the
Order and Hospital Chambers. At the beginning of the 18th century,
on the orders of Peter I, three temples of the Dovmont city, looking
at Pskov, were decapitated and turned into batteries and bastions,
and the rest of the temples were used as weapons depots. At the end
of the 19th century, Dovmontov turned into a wasteland, and
vegetables and fruits were traded on its territory. During the Great
Patriotic War, a German anti-aircraft battery stood here.
Now
the city of Dovmont is a kind of Pskov Pompeii: the foundations of
ancient temples discovered by archaeologists. You can get into it
either through the Rybnitsa Tower (destroyed in the 1780s, it was
restored in the 1970s by Pskov restorers in “ancient forms”), or
through the iron gate between the Order Chambers of the 17th century
and the former building of the Spiritual Consistory of the 19th
century, now tour desk. These gates, devoid of any artistic content,
were put in place of the baroque front gates of the 19th century
that survived the war. Previously, there were arched gates with a
raised top at this place - they are shown on the icon “The Vision of
the Elder Dorotheus”, which was previously in the Gostiny Dvor near
the shop of the merchant Zhiglevich and is known as the “Zhiglevich
icon”. It is interesting that on this icon in the wall of the city
of Dovmont from the side of the Velikaya River one more gate is
shown.
In the 15th-16th centuries, the city of Dovmont was
densely built up with various kinds of structures. Near the western
wall was the Prince's Court, in the southwestern corner there were
several civil buildings, and the rest of the space was occupied by
churches, of which there were 17 or 18 at that time. The churches
were rather big, had side chapels and narthexes, tombs, courtyards
and cemeteries with fences. Several of the first temples were built
by Dovmont himself, in one of them he was buried (later his relics
were transferred to the Trinity Cathedral). The most intensive
construction took place in the 14th century, when wooden temples
were replaced by stone ones, and new stone ones were erected in
place of the old ones. According to archaeologists, most of the
churches were painted. The frescoes taken from the wall from the
ancient Church of the Intercession are being restored in the
Hermitage, and the frescoes of the Church of St. Nicholas on Grebl
can be seen in the Pskov Museum. By the way, Pskovians called Rowing
a deep ditch at the foot of Perseus, which served as an additional
line of defense for Krom.
The only historical building that
has been preserved on the territory of the city of Dovmont is the
Order Chambers of the end of the 17th century, where the museum
exposition is now located with the interior of the 17th century
recreated on the second floor. The chambers were erected in
1693-1695 and were used, in modern terms, as office space for
managers and state bureaucracy. During the Northern War, on the
orders of Peter I, the roof was knocked down, and the building was
covered with turf and turned into an arsenal. The heavy porch, once
compositionally balanced by the high figured roof of the building,
was restored according to the excavated foundation and the surviving
description.
From the territory of the city of Dovmont, you
can get to the Vlasiev tower, which got its name from the nearby
church of St. Blaise on Torgovishche, built almost at the end of the
10th century. The Vlasyevskaya Tower was erected in 1376-1377,
rebuilt in the 16th century and is the second in the Pskov fortress,
yielding in size only to the southernmost tower of the Round City -
Pokrovskaya. A steep staircase in the tower leads to the observation
deck, from where wonderful views of Zavelichye open up, and Krom
appears in a very unusual perspective. True, the glazed windows of
the observation deck interfere with capturing these beauties.
The wall of the posadnik Boris, which ran
along modern Profsoyuznaya Street, was built in 1309 and, in order
not to hamper the development of the Middle City, was dismantled in
the middle of the 15th century. The construction of large defensive
structures of the Middle City began in the 1370s and was completed
in the mid-1490s.
The southern section of the wall of the
Middle City was erected in 1374-1375. It started from the Burkovsky
"bonfire", which later received the name of the Kislinskaya, and
then the Mstislavskaya tower. Further, perpendicular to the river,
the wall went east to Velikaya (Soviet) Street, where it turned to
the northeast and walked along the current Pushkin Street, from
where it continued to the bank of Pskova approximately along the
modern Krasnyh Partizan Street. The ruins of this wall have been
preserved in some places and can be seen not far from the Yamsky
chambers or near the Velikaya River.
There were ten towers on
this section of the wall, of which only one has survived -
Mstislavskaya, built into the wall of the Round City, which runs
along the coast of the Great. Most of the wall between the Middle
and Roundabout cities was broken at the end of the 18th century, the
fortress moat that once existed there was filled up and no borders
between the Middle and Roundabout cities now remain, as, however,
the building style of these parts of Pskov is indistinguishable. The
territory outside the walls of the Middle City was called by the
locals the Field, and the southwestern part of the Field received
its own name - Polonishche.
In the middle of the 15th
century, first a wooden wall was built in Zapskovye, and at the end
of the 15th century a stone wall was built. In the Round City in
1465, a wooden wall protected the territory between Velikaya and
Pskov from the southeast, covering the entire Polonishche. The stone
wall appeared much later, by the 70s of the 16th century. The
fortress was fortified with stone towers, zahabs protruding beyond
the walls, and underground counter-mine galleries - rumors. Only the
so-called Lower Grids remained wooden - a wall with two gates that
blocked access to the city through the mouth of the Pskov. But on
both sides of the Lower Grids, there were already two stone towers
born in 1500 - Ploskaya on the side of Krom and High in Zapskovye.
In the 17th century, at the mouth of the Pskov River, a stone wall
was erected with arched openings and gratings made of wrought iron
logs. The upper gratings that blocked the entrance to the river in
the region of Gremyachaya Gora were rebuilt in stone as early as
1526, at the same time the Kozmodemyanskaya (Gremyachaya) tower
appeared above them.
The walls of the Roundabout City are
well preserved in many places, but in some places they have been
restored. They pass along the embankment of the Velikaya River and
Sverdlov Street and continue in Zapskovye along Gremyachaya and
Zastennaya streets, ending with the High Tower at the mouth of
Pskov. These walls still define the layout of the central part of
the city to this day. Visible in many places, sometimes they are
suddenly lost among the earthen ramparts, ditches and green spaces
that run along the wall. In some places, gaps are found in the wall,
facilitating movement between the "internal" and "walled" parts of
the city. And at the Gremyachaya tower, where the wall intersects
with the Pskov one, there is one of the most picturesque places in
the city. In Zapskovye, closer to the Lower Grids, there is a
section of the wall where restorers have not yet set foot. It is
here that you can see the original ancient walls, retaining in some
places even the original plastering.
Today, to one degree or
another, several towers of the Roundabout city have been preserved.
At the mouth of the Pskov River, the Flat and High towers are
located opposite each other. In ancient times, between this
picturesquely located pair were the Lower Grids. The largest in
girth in Europe, the Flat Tower completes the Krom wall, which runs
along the Great Tower and, together with the High Tower, is one of
the most photographed objects. Both towers at the beginning of the
20th century were “picturesque ruins”, but were restored.
From the High Tower, the fortress wall of Zapskovye begins, going at
first along the Great Tower and turning to the northeast at the
nearby corner Varlaam Tower. Round in cross section, it was known in
antiquity under the name of Naugolnaya and has come down to us in a
dilapidated state. From the Varlaamovskaya Tower along Zastennaya
Street there is a section of the wall where no restoration work was
carried out, and therefore the wall and the moat along it have
retained their original appearance. At the confluence of Zastennaya
Street with Leon Pozemsky Street, the Varlaam Gates previously
stood, over which the long-destroyed old Varlaam Tower towered (it
was from it that the name passed to the former Naugolnaya Tower).
The earth embankment in front of the gate is the remains of the
fortifications of 1701.
The wall continues further up to Oleg
Koshevoy Street. On Zastennaya Street, approximately between the
19th and 20th houses, the ruins of the Bykovskaya Tower are visible,
and in the northernmost part of the fortress, where Zastennaya
Street turns to the southeast, the remains of the Zagryazhsky Zakhab
and the Volkovskaya Tower have been preserved.
After Oleg
Koshevoy Street, the wall appears only in places. A piece of the
wall has been preserved next to the Obrazskaya Church from Zhabya
Lavitsa, and between its spindles are the ruins of the Obrazsky
Zahab. Another section of the wall, ending with the Deaf Tower, is
located behind the intersection with Labor Street. The blind tower
is distinguished by a rectangular section and has only two tiers.
The Gremyachaya (Kozmodemyanskaya) Tower near the Upper Grids is
located in one of the most picturesque places in the city, from
where a wonderful view of Pskov opens with thickets of bushes, green
lawns and weeping willows. The tower was erected on a natural
limestone rock, it has a height of about 19 meters, a diameter at
the base is 14 meters, and the thickness of the walls of its lower
tier reaches five meters. The tower has six combat tiers. They are
equipped with loopholes and connected by stone stairs going through
the thickness of the walls. The tower with the stepped vaults
preserved inside is worthy of inspection from the inside, although
the ceilings between the tiers have not been preserved.
The
romantic appearance of the tower and the ruins surrounding it gave
rise in the 19th century to legends about the beautiful sleeping
princess, countless treasures buried in the tower - her dowry - and
the evil spirit guarding the dream of the princess and her wealth.
The same legend claims that at night a mysterious ringing of buried
gold is heard in the tower, for which it got its name.
Not
far from the intersection of Spegalskogo (former Mikhailovskaya) and
Sverdlov streets, there is a well-preserved round four-tiered tower
Mikhailovskaya Tower. Next to it there used to be the Mikhailovsky
Gate, which, together with all the surrounding objects, got its name
from the nearby Mikhailovsky Monastery.
Even further, at the
intersection of Karl Marx and Sverdlov streets, there is a low round
Petrovsky tower. It is named, apparently, from the Petrovsky end -
the area of ancient Pskov. Nearby in ancient times stood the
Petrovsky Gates, which served as the entrance to the city from
Novgorod.
The most spectacular is the Pokrovskaya Tower,
located at the southern edge of the Roundabout City on the
embankment of the Velikaya River, not far from the Mirozhsky
Monastery. Until then, dilapidated, in the middle of the 20th
century the tower was restored, including passages, galleries,
stairs and loopholes with deep niches. With a circumference of 90 m,
it is the largest fortress tower in Europe. Nearby is the “Batory
breach”, made by the artillery of Stefan Batory, who tried to take
Pskov in the fall of 1581. It was from him that the additions to the
names of the churches standing nearby were formed - “at the Prolom”.
A little to the north you can see the Pokrovsky Gates.
On the
embankment of Velikaya there is a well-preserved Mstislavskaya
tower, formerly called Kislinskaya after the name of the Kislinsky
lane that passed here. In the 19th century, the tower was given over
to the needs of the telephone exchange, which saved it from
destruction. It is closely adjacent to the Soviet-era factory
building, which replaced part of the ancient wall, and above it
rises ... a factory chimney of the 20th century!
In the XIV century, the city expanded its borders
beyond the walls of the Dovmontov city and entered Zastenye, which at
that time was limited by the wall of 1375. Later, with the advent of the
wall of the Round City in the 16th century, a new Zastenie arose, and
the former became known as the Middle City. In ancient times, the
territory of the Middle City was distinguished by a high building
density: by the end of the 15th century, there were six and a half
thousand households on its territory, not counting churches and civil
public buildings, and the Roundabout City at that time was mainly
planted with gardens and orchards. Today we will not find any borders
between the Middle and Roundabout cities, but, inhabited much earlier,
the Middle City has given shelter to several interesting Pskov
monuments. Among them is the oldest temple on the right bank of the
Great - the Church of Michael the Archangel. It is within easy reach of
the former courtyard of the Pskov-Pechersky Monastery, where only a
heavily rebuilt Hodegetria Church has come down to us from several
buildings. In ancient times, Vragovka Street led from the Pechora
Compound to the wall of the Middle City. It ran through Usokha (the name
meant, according to various versions, the old bed of a dried-up river or
a drained swamp), walked past two vanished monasteries and the Church of
St. Nicholas from Usokha, and finally approached the wall of the Middle
City near the Basil's Church on Gorka.
Church of Michael the
Archangel (1339), st. Sovetskaya, 18. Very simple in composition,
supplemented in the 17th century with a hipped bell tower, the church
was built in 1339 among the first Konchan churches in the oldest part of
the city - on Gorodets. Most likely, during construction, the church
resembled the one-apse Trinity Cathedral of the 12th century. Despite
later alterations, the four-pillar quadrangle with a single apse and
western porch remained from the original construction. In ancient times,
the church had a mosquito cover, traces of which are visible in the form
of semicircles on the facades of the quadrangle. The covering of the
western narthex was the same. At the turn of the 14th and 15th
centuries, the south chapel appeared near the church, standing
symmetrically with respect to the transverse axis of the temple. Most
likely, the same chapel was on the north side. In the 17th century, the
temple underwent two renovations. After the first of them, apparently
capital, in 1613 the altar was consecrated, as evidenced by a memorial
plate on the southern wall of the building. In 1694–1695, the
present-day drum with a belt was made from polychrome stove tiles, the
cupola was covered with tin-plated iron and crowned with a gilded cross.
At the same time, the roof covering of the quadrangle was replaced with
a simple four-slope roof, and the aisles received single-slope roofs.
All these alterations led to the loss of the former proportionality and
simplification of the forms of the church. In the 18th-19th centuries,
the temple was remodeled several more times. During the restoration in
1948, some of the 19th century strata were removed. Now the church is
active. On its porch there is a fresco by a modern icon painter
depicting the Archangel Michael.
Basil's Church on Gorka (1413),
Oktyabrsky Prospekt, 5. The first church on this site dates back to the
14th century, although only the fact that it was painted in 1377 is
known from the chronicle. In 1413, a new church of Basil appeared, which
has come down to our time, of course, with significant alterations. The
church stands on a small hillock, once surrounded by a swamp, and looks
very harmoniously from the Children's Park, from where the clumsy stone
bell tower attached in the 18th century with an even later wooden
staircase adjoining it is not visible.
At its core, it was a
single-domed three-apse temple, characteristic of Pskov, with a
quadrangle covered with pozakomar. In the 17th century, the church
underwent significant alterations: the galleries were rebuilt, the
coverings of the quadrangle and the northern aisle were changed, and,
apparently, the southern aisle was broken (whether it was not exactly
established). The drum and apses have retained their original appearance
and are notable for ornamental belts that appeared in Pskov just at that
time. The original slit-like windows were preserved only on the drum and
in the side parts of the apses, while the wider central ones were
pierced later. In the 18th century, the temple fell into such disrepair
that it was scheduled for scrapping and survived only by a lucky chance.
The current cupola with a metal coating was entirely made in the 19th
century, while its predecessor was covered with glazed scaly tiles of a
bright bluish-turquoise color. During the Great Patriotic War, the dome
of the northern aisle was destroyed. The original appearance of the
church, including the roof coverings, was restored only during a recent
restoration.
Church of St. Nicholas on Usokhe (1536) , st.
Sovetskaya, 19. Another Konchan temple, the first version of which was
built in 1371. The current church appeared on the site of the old temple
in 1536 and was very large for its time, second only to the Trinity
Cathedral in size. Over the years that have passed since its
construction, the church has “grown” into the ground by about two
meters, which is clearly visible when entering the building: the floor
of the church has remained at the same level. The entrance, by the way,
is not located in the usual place, but on the east side, almost in front
of the iconostasis.
Like most of the ancient Pskov churches, the
church has not escaped alterations. So, in the 17th century, the upper
part of the building was washed away by water, and its vaults were
overgrown with grass and shrubs. In the course of repairs at the end of
the 17th century, the quadrangle lost its eight-slope covering, the
coverings of the aisle and porches were changed, and a squat porch was
attached to the western porch. In the 80s of the 18th century, a
two-span belfry, placed on the northern wall, was broken, and instead of
it, a bell tower and a chapel were erected near the southeastern side of
the church, hiding a small ancient chapel of the "unquenchable candle"
near the southwestern side of the building. Alterations of the 19th
century further distorted the appearance of the ancient building, and to
top it off, during the years of the Great Patriotic War, the church
survived a fire. Restoration of 1946-1974 under the leadership of Yu.P.
Spegalsky freed the temple from later layers and almost returned to its
original appearance.
Now, as in the old days, it is a three-apse
single-domed temple with an eight-slope roof, a preserved northern aisle
and a two-bay belfry restored on the northern wall. A small chapel with
a small elegant dome and wide openings to the outside still adjoins the
southern side apse. From the alterations of the 17th century, only the
western porch remained, and the dark green glazed tiles that covered the
voluminous onion cupola were lost. The extremely laconic decor of the
church is typical for Pskov churches - the processing of the facades
with shoulder blades and the belt of the ornament from the depressions
on the apses and drums. In the interior of the church, during the
restoration, a layer of late plaster was removed and now, admiring the
high space under the dome, in the lunettes you can see holes from
golosniks - ceramic vessels inserted into the walls to improve
acoustics.
Hodegetria Church (1537–1685), st. Profsoyuznaya, 1.
The building of the Hodegetria Church that has come down to us is one of
the few Pskov churches of the 17th century. It manifested a love for the
rich ornamentation and coloring of buildings, characteristic of Rus' in
the 17th century and so rare in Pskov. Unfortunately, it is possible to
see this only by the power of the imagination in the footsteps of Yu.P.
Spegalsky - from the building there was only a stone skeleton devoid of
cupolas and decor.
The church was built in 1685 on the site of a
16th century church. In the Great City Panorama of the late 17th-early
18th century, the Hodegetria Church played the role of a strong
architectural accent, comparable only to the Trinity Cathedral, which
was being built around the same time. It was a five-domed church, rare
for Pskov, with a large, placed on four pillars, central dome and small
small domes, located, as in the Church of St. Nicholas from Torg, not in
the corners, but on the sides of the quadrangle. Chetverik had a
twenty-four-slope covering, rare for Pskov, reminiscent of the Novgorod
church of Boris and Gleb. Instead of the traditional Pskov belfry, the
Hodegetria Church had a bell tower with a high octagonal tent and nine
small cupolas set around it, like St. Basil's Cathedral. The domes were
covered with glazed tiles and ended with gilded crosses. The walls,
drums and the tent of the church were painted with yellow ocher and
decorated with belts and large fly with crosses of various shapes laid
out of green tiles.
The once cheerful decor of the church played
a fatal role in its fate. In 1866, the leadership of the Pskov-Pechora
Monastery considered this beauty inappropriate and decided to change its
design in the spirit of the new time. It was after this alteration that
the church began to be considered uninteresting and poorly preserved.
During the Great Patriotic War, the church survived a fire and lost all
coverings. And in 1946-1948, thick layers of plaster of 1866 began to
fall off, revealing the original forms of the temple. Later, all the
plaster of the 19th century was removed and the headless and naked
church can now tell the uninitiated viewer only about the use of not
only limestone slabs in its construction, but also brickwork, which
simplified the implementation of decorative elements.
Here, in
the courtyard of the Pskov-Pechora Monastery, there is the Bishop's
House - a modest architectural monument of the 19th century.
Church of Peter and Paul from Buy (1540) , st. Karl Marx, 2. The origin
of the name from the buoy is not entirely clear. On the one hand, in the
old days, burial places were called buoys, but simply churchyards, which
also served as burial places, were also called buoys or buoys. Be that
as it may, the most common assumption is that the church was built near
the ancient burial mounds and therefore received such a name.
The
first mention of the Peter and Paul Church is associated with the
construction of the wall by posadnik Boris in 1309, when a wall and a
stone tower were built next to it. In 1373, the old church was
dismantled and moved to another place, and a new one was put in its
place. In 1404, a wall was built along the Pskov bank from the Rybnitsa
Gates to the Church of Peter and Paul, as a result of which the church
ended up in a corner between two walls. The third Peter and Paul Church
was erected in 1540 and the remains of this temple, of course, after
repeated alterations, have come down to our time. The current version of
the temple is the result of scientific restorations of the 20th and 21st
centuries.
The history of the alterations of the temple in brief
is as follows. By the beginning of the 17th century, after the Livonian
War and the subsequent devastation, the temple was pretty dilapidated.
In 1610, it was overhauled, covering the walls, vaults, iconostasis,
roof and dome with repairs. A century later, a new repair was required,
during which the current chapter was made, covered with iron with a
relief ornament and crowned with a gilded cross in the spirit of the
17th century. In 1810, two aisles were broken - the southern Znamensky
and the northwestern in the name of the Apostle Thomas. Then they
demolished the belfry, which stood on the southern wall of the church,
and attached a porch to the western vestibule. In the 19th century, a
tiled belt with a temple-created inscription was knocked down and
plastered. During the restoration of 1962, part of the losses, including
the belfry, were restored. At the same time, the church acquired a
sixteen-slope covering - now you can’t find such more in Pskov - the
existence of which in antiquity has not been reliably established.
Later, the porch of the beginning of the 19th century was removed. The
last restoration of the building was carried out in the 2000s.
The current appearance of the church is as close as possible to its
original appearance. It was a three-apse temple, characteristic of Pskov
in the 15th century, with one dome placed on four pillars, and a belfry
on the southern wall of the quadrangle. At the western end were arranged
two tents with altars, which played the role of small aisles. Two more
lost aisles with domes covered with light green ceramic scales were
located in the eastern part of the building. The last, fifth, aisle was
located on the northwestern side of the church and was also
irretrievably lost. The decor of the temple is typical for Pskov. The
walls of the quadrangle are treated with spatulas ending in lobed
arches, the top of the apses is decorated with a three-row ornament of a
runner and a curb, and the central apse is treated with roller patterns.
The temple-created inscription has been restored on the drum, and the
head is covered with aluminum sheets with embossed ornaments. The
interior of the church with its stepped vaults also deserves attention.
There is a legend that during the years of the Great Northern War
the church was visited by Tsar Peter I, who lived in the Yamsky chambers
located nearby.
Yard of the Rusinovs (mid-17th century), st. Karl
Marx, 10. The chambers, which were once the largest civil buildings in
the city, were erected by Mikhail Rusinov, the oldest representative of
this merchant family. From several stone buildings of the middle of the
17th century, three have survived to this day. Their purpose is not
known exactly, but it can be assumed that the two-story building with a
porch served as residential chambers, the two-story stone building was
used as a storage room, and the one-story building, now used as a
garage, was a kitchen. All of them originally had wooden
superstructures, and the residential chambers had another stone floor.
The lower floor of a residential building served as a warehouse for
goods and valuable property stored by merchants in ancient times in the
northern part of Krom. Initially, the vaults in the inner part with
strippings rested on a square pillar in the center of the chamber.
Later, one of the owners of the building, afraid of cracks, reinforced
the vaults with four round pillars. The second floor of the chambers was
partly used for storage and a vaulted dining room was also located here.
On the third floor, which was also made of stone, there was a chamber
for entertainment, around which, as a rule, a wooden ambush was
arranged. Wooden bedrooms were placed above the wooden ceilings of the
third floor, because the people of Pskov refused to live in stone rooms
for a long time, considering them unhealthy.
From the north, the Pskova River served as the ancient
borders of the Round City, along the banks of which a fortress wall
passed, and in other places - a wall that protected the city from the
southeast side and from the side of the Velikaya River. Under the high
and rocky left bank of the Pskov River, the once wide river washed up
several sandy islands, which eventually turned into a flat lowland -
Podgorie. Here in ancient times there were mills, baths, leather
workshops and small yards of the poorest residents of the town. A high
rocky shore hung over Piedmont (in 1465 a wooden fortress wall passed
along it), densely built up with stone temples and monasteries. In the
17th century, the place began to be built up with stone industrial
buildings.
A little to the east, upstream of the Pskov, it is
easy to find the remains of Peter's earthen fortifications (from them
you can admire the views of Zapskovye), and behind Gogol Street, near
the fortress wall, there is an earthen battery of Peter's, the so-called
Lapina Hill. Under the hill is the church of the Nikolsky “from Pesok”
monastery, covered by Peter, its walls can be seen through the gap at
the western edge of the hill. A little further upstream of Pskov, not
far from the intersection of Nekrasov and Vorovsky streets, there are
not only the remains of Russian fortifications from the Great Northern
War, but also stone chambers of the 17th century covered with earth and
monastery churches.
A little to the north, on the banks of the
Pskov River, there is Ostrovok, where even before the Great Patriotic
War one could see pre-Petrine narrow old streets, cramped courtyards
with wooden houses, fences with boarded gates and gates with wrought
iron patterned rings. And next to them among the bushes and lawns were
the remains of ancient stone buildings. No less picturesque was the
Gremyachaya Mountain located opposite Ostrovka with the ruins of ancient
buildings and the Gremyachaya Tower. Now this territory has turned into
a walking area, but, having lost some of the ancient ruins, it has not
lost its charm and is remarkable for its beautiful views.
Fortunately, not only picturesque ruins have come down to us from the
buildings of the Round City, which can be revived only by the power of
the imagination. Many very remarkable ancient monuments have been
preserved. So, to the north of the former Trupekhovskaya Street, now
Oktyabrsky Prospekt, there are several civil structures of the 17th
century:
Chambers of Yamsky (1680s), st. Vorovskogo, 6. A pair of
historical buildings that became famous after Peter I stayed in them at
the beginning of the Northern War. Once they were beautiful and rich
stone buildings that served as an architectural dominant in their part
of the city. During the XVIII-XIX centuries, the chambers changed
several owners, and in 1855 the main building survived a fire. It was
restored with great distortion, and only deep cellars have been
preserved from the original building of the 17th century. The southern
facade of the simpler second building of the Chambers remained almost
untouched, and on the lower floor you can see a vaulted pantry.
Opposite the chambers of Yamsky once stood the corner tower of the
Middle City. A little to the north, near the pedestrian bridge over
Pskov, there are the remains of the Church of the Epiphany from Brody,
as this place was called in the old days. The church was built in the
16th century on the site of an older one and almost completely covered
with earth during the fortification works of 1701. At the request of the
owner of the chambers, Nikifor Yamsky, the southern chapel was left from
the church, but at the end of the 18th century, he also died.
Guryev Chambers (second half of the 17th century), st. Krasnykh
Partizan, 10. The chambers of Thaddeus Guryev were built earlier than
the chambers of Yamsky and now represent an abandoned house from the
Pskov limestone slab. Since its construction, it has changed several
owners: in 1805 it belonged to Trubinsky, and its last owner was de
Barani. The house is one-story, on the basement, but from the outside it
is the only thing that reminds of its ancient origin. Inside, ancient
vaults have been preserved in places. In the courtyard of the house at
the beginning of the 20th century, there were remains of a wall from
1375 with one of the towers of the Middle City.
House of Pechenko
(second half of the 17th century), st. Gogol, 43. The house is called by
the name of the last owner of the beginning of the 20th century, and
nothing is known about its former owners. At the beginning of the 20th
century, it was used as a transit prison, in Soviet times until 1990 it
was a residential building, and now it is an abandoned, slowly but
surely deteriorating building. Multiple reconstructions have greatly
distorted the original appearance of the ancient Pskov house. The last
of them are the repair of 1937 with redevelopment and replacement of the
tiled roof with an iron one, and the restoration of 1949–1951 with an
imitation of the ancient Pskov style, when the shape and position of the
window openings were changed and a new porch was made with antique
styling.
The building consists of two buildings of different
times, both of the second half of the XVII century. The older part - the
former one-story residential chambers - now are ruins in the middle of a
picturesque weeds. A younger, once three-story building has survived to
our time. As in other Pskov residential chambers, the upper tier of the
house was made of wood - its remains have survived to this day. Ancient
vaults have been preserved inside the building.
Malting or
Lapin's house (XVII century), st. Gogol, 42. Neither the date of
construction nor the name of the first owner of the house have been
preserved. It is known that in the middle of the 19th century the
building was used by the merchant S.D. Voronin for the production of
malt, from where one of its names came from. In 1873, the owner of the
building was Baron Fitingof, and the last owner of the house was Lapin,
from whom in 1914 the building became the property of the Pskov
Archaeological Society. Later, the funds of the local history museum
were located in Solodezhna.
The building, located in the middle
of an overgrown courtyard, has been well preserved, although,
apparently, in ancient times it had another, third, stone floor, above
which there were almost certainly wooden living quarters. However, the
first two floors and the porch have come down to us almost intact.
Inside, the chambers have a three-part layout, traditional for Pskov,
and all the rooms are covered with ancient vaults. Inside the wall, a
staircase leading to the attic or third floor, and even a toilet
arranged inside the wall, has been preserved.
Opposite
Solodezhna, next to Pechenko's house, near a simple village house (45
Gogol Street), you can see the stone foundation of the hut - the
podyzbitsa - of the second half of the 17th century.
Somewhere at
the intersection of Nekrasov (former Bolshaya) and Karl Marx (former
Petrovskaya) streets in the 16th-17th centuries there was a New Market,
which arose on this site in 1510 at the behest of Vasily III instead of
the Old Market near the walls of Dovmontov city. To the south, Novy Torg
extended to Oktyabrsky Prospekt (Trupekhovka), its western border was
the wall of the Sredniy Gorod (now Pushkin Street), from the north it
may have reached Spegalsky (Mikhailovskaya) Street, and from the east it
was bounded by the wall of the Round City. Two churches have been
preserved on the Market:
Church of the Intercession from Torg,
st. Karl Marx, 36. The first wooden church of the Intercession was
erected to get rid of the great pestilence of 1522, which began just at
Novy Torg. The place where the church was erected was swampy, so it had
to be built "on rafts". In 1590 it burned down, but after some time it
was restored in stone. The exact date of construction of the stone
church is unknown, there is only its annalistic mention under 1637 and
1642. Most likely, at the end of the 17th century, the church was
rebuilt and this happened, most likely, after the strongest fire of
1676.
Neither the blind drum of the single dome nor the cubic apse of
the church has a typical Pskov ornament, although the composition of the
temple, traces of an eight-slope roof and decoration of the northern and
southern facades with spatulas are typical of Pskov. The building is
covered with a thick layer of plaster, under which, perhaps, something
more interesting is hidden. Perhaps, the church looks most impressive
from the intersection of K. Marx and Nekrasov streets, from the side of
the hipped bell tower, extremely rare for Pskov, in the form of an
octagon on a quadrangle.
Church of St. Nicholas the Appeared or
St. Nicholas from Torg (XVII century), st. Nekrasova, 35. The exact date
of construction of the temple that has come down to us is unknown, and
among its predecessors there is a mention of the construction of the
Church of St. Nicholas in Sands in 1419, but the further fate of this
building is unclear. According to the most common version, the current
stone church was erected after a fire in 1676 by parishioners of the
burnt church of Paraskeva Pyatnitsa to store the icon of St. Nicholas
saved from the fire. Another possible date for the construction of the
church is 1659. Since 1843, the church passed to the Old Believers, and
now it belongs to the Pskov Theological School, which for some reason
means a ban on photographing it.
The Church of St. Nicholas ot
Torg is one of the very few city churches that appeared in the 17th
century, when the efforts of the craftsmen were directed to civil
construction, and the churches were only being repaired and remade in
the spirit of the new time. The church is the rarest example of a
five-domed temple for Pskov, and its four additional domes on thin deaf
drums are placed on the sides, and not at the corners of the quadrangle,
as was customary everywhere in the country. The original covering of the
church was probably eight-slope, and the current simplified version
appeared during one of the alterations of the 18th-19th centuries. Now
the temple is pillarless, but this was not always the case - during one
of the repairs, the foundations of the pillars that once supported the
vaults were discovered. The unusual three-tiered belfry near the western
wall, apparently, has also come down to us in a modified form: a
single-span tier was later built over the older two-span structure.
During the alteration of the altar part, the three apses were combined
from the outside into one rectangular room, although inside they are
still separated by walls with arched openings. The domes of the church,
covered with iron in the second half of the 19th century, previously had
a roof of green glazed tiles, which successfully combined with a belt of
glazed ceramic kokoshniks on the central dome. The lack of ornamentation
on the facades of the quadrangle was compensated by small niches, where
icons were previously placed. Before the revolution, the iron entrance
doors of the church had copper inserts with pictures engraved on them
depicting the history of three Christian martyrs - Ananias, Azarias and
Misail. Before the Great Patriotic War, these doors were kept in the
Pskov Museum, where they are now is unknown.
Between Oktyabrsky
Prospekt and Sovetskaya Street are located:
Church of Anastasia the
Patterner in Kuznetsy (XVI century), Oktyabrsky Prospekt, 9. According
to local legend, the church in the name of Anastasia was first built in
1377 by Vasily Dol, who also built the Vasilyevsky Church, and the
dedication of the temple was chosen by the names of his wife and
daughter. The chronicle tells about the construction of a votive (to get
rid of pestilence) wooden church in 1488 in one day. A year later, a
stone church was built on the site of the wooden church. During a great
fire in 1539, the vaults of the building collapsed, and after that the
church is mentioned in the quitrent books as functioning almost 50 years
later. In the 17th century, the galleries were rebuilt, the southern
aisle was destroyed and the northern one was rebuilt. In 1819-1827,
instead of the belfry and the porch, the porch with stair shoots that
has come down to us and a three-tiered bell tower with a spire in the
style of classicism were built. At the same time, the eight-slope
covering was replaced with a simple four-slope, for which the corners of
the facades were cut off. At the end of the 19th century, the dome was
replaced with the one that exists now, apparently, at the same time, the
belts of the ornament on the drum were cut down and plastered. In the
19th century, the interior was also redesigned in the style of
classicism, for which, similarities of Doric capitals were stuck in the
upper part of the pillars supporting the vaults. At the end of the 20th
- beginning of the 21st century, the church underwent another
restoration, during which they tried to return it to its former
appearance. Outside, these changes mainly affected the restoration of
the traditional Pskov decor on the drum.
In the 16th century, the
church was considered one of the most beautiful in Pskov. It was a
four-pillared one-domed temple with a main cubic volume and three apses.
The building, contrary to Pskov traditions, was symmetrical and had two
chapels, galleries ran around the main volume, there was a porch in
front of the porch, and entrances to the cellars were symmetrically
located from the north and south. Since ancient times, the facades of
the quadrangle have been divided by three-part blades, the tops of the
apses and the drum are decorated with traditional Pskov three-row
ornamental belts of a runner and a curb, and the decor of the middle
apse is complemented by roller patterns. From the 17th century, the
northern chapel with an elegant cupola and a patterned cross crowning
the central chapter of the 19th century have been preserved.
Church of Sergius of Radonezh from Zaluzhye (XVI century), st. Sverdlov,
42 a. The church stands behind a former swamp, called "puddle", hence
its name. The church in the name of the Moscow saint, obviously, could
appear only after the annexation of the Pskov lands to Rus', i.e. not
earlier than the 16th century, but the most probable date for its
construction is considered to be the end of the 16th century, when the
invasion of the troops of Stefan Batory forced the authorities to move
the walled Sergius Monastery to the territory of the Round City. Only
one church has come down to us from the monastery, and it is known that
in 1642 it was already made of stone. The temple is unusual in its
four-pillar construction, which is rarely used for such small
structures. Otherwise, it was typical for Pskov churches and was a
single-domed cubic volume with three apses and a graceful double-span
belfry on the northern wall of the quadrangle. The biography of the
church includes the addition of a drum in the second half of the 17th
century and the appearance of a ceramic belt over the classical Pskov
ornament. Most likely, the famous ceramic dome made of green irrigation
plowshare appeared at the same time. Once upon a time, such domes were
common for Pskov, but only one scaly ceramic dome survived until the
beginning of the 20th century - just on the St. Sergius Church. In 1785,
a chapel appeared on the south side of the building, built by the
merchant I.Ya. Postnikov. At the beginning of the 20th century, the
church was covered with a four-pitched roof, but the original roof was
eight-pitched. During the Great Patriotic War, a bomb hit the apses of
the church, and in 1947 the drum and dome collapsed. During the work of
the 1960s and 1990s, the apses were restored and the eight-slope roof
was remade. Now the church is unplastered, its drum and dome are lost.
Church of the New Ascension (1467), st. Nekrasova, 20. Not far from
the church of Anastasia in the 15th century stood the Novovoznesensky
convent, where in 1467 a stone church appeared. True, the current
building most likely dates back to the 16th century, and in the 17th
century it underwent noticeable alterations. In 1764, the monastery was
abolished, and the Church of the New Ascension became a parish church
and was assigned to the Anastasevsky Church. In 1805, they wanted to
dismantle the church “because of dilapidation,” but the parishioners
stood up for it and petitioned the emperor himself, promising to ensure
its existence. They had little money, and by 1888 the church was
completely dilapidated, and its roof was overgrown with grass. However,
after the miraculous rescue of the emperor's family during a train crash
on October 17, 1888, followed by the construction of new churches
throughout the country, benefactors were found and it was decided to
renew the church. By 1890, a new roof and dome were made and the
iconostasis was restored.
In the 16th century, the church had a
complex composition of the main cubic volume, two symmetrically located
aisles, vestibules and a gallery. The original cover was eight-slope.
The old northern tent was previously an aisle. A vestibule adjoins it
from the west, and to the left of it, a two-span belfry has been
preserved almost intact, remarkable for its precisely adjusted
proportions. The lower floor of the belfry was used for pantries and
cellars, a staircase made right in the southern wall leads to the upper
tier, and along the western staircase you can get into the basement of
the belfry covered with a box vault. One of the three original apses was
dismantled along with its chapel. Of the several traditional elements of
decor, the church retained only the segmentation of the facades with
shoulder blades, the rest was lost. Crosses of the 17th century were
placed on the cupola of the 19th century and the belfry.
From the
south to Novy Torg, on the territory of the ancient Polonishche, there
was a place called Romanova Gora. Here, in the immediate vicinity of
Torg, the richest residents of the city settled. Therefore, when active
stone construction began in Pkov in the 17th century, it was in the
Romanikha region that a huge number of new buildings grew, some of which
have survived to this day. Among them:
Chambers at the Sokolya
Tower (priest's house) (1675-1684), Komsomolsky per., 5. Small two-story
chambers were built in the second half of the 17th century near the
Sokolya Tower, which was part of the fortifications of the Round City.
In ancient times, the current Komsomolsky Lane was called Sokolya
Street, and then it reached Velikaya (Soviet) Street. Nothing is known
for certain about the first owners of the house, but in the 19th century
a priest lived in the house, and then there was a Polish church next to
the chambers. Although the building is old, almost nothing has survived
from the 17th century. The chambers were rebuilt in the 19th century,
some of the windows were expanded, and new ones were pierced on the rear
facade, although they tried to give them the old form. After a fire in
1944, the building collapsed and was rebuilt in 1953. Only the lower
storage floor and a stone wall porch remained from the ancient building.
Pogankiny Chambers (XVII century) , st. Nekrasova, 7. The most
famous and well-preserved monument of Pskov civil architecture. The
first owners of the chambers were the merchants Pogankins, but the exact
date of their construction is unknown. Based on the methods of their
construction, this is the first third of the 17th century; according to
another version, they are attributed to the last quarter of the same
century. Probably the first owner of the chambers was S.I. Pogankin, one
of the richest merchants in the city, entered the living room of the
hundred in the 1670s. Despite his high position (or just because of
this), he was not loved by the people for abuse of power and, moreover,
was accused of smuggling. In 1710, after the death of the last
representative of the family, the chambers went to the treasury and were
used first as a grocery store, and then as a gunpowder warehouse. By the
middle of the 18th century, the chambers were pretty dilapidated and by
1754 they were overhauled, after which they were used as a warehouse
until the end of the 19th century. In 1900, the chambers were handed
over to the Pskov Archaeological Society, which made another renovation,
adapting it to their needs, and after the revolution, the building
housed a historical museum with a library. In 1944, the Germans tried to
blow up the chambers, but although the northern part of the building was
badly damaged, the force of the explosion was not enough to completely
destroy the ancient thick walls. In the middle of the 20th century, the
chambers were restored and are now used as a museum.
The building
was built from a local limestone slab and consists of three volumes, set
with the letter P - a three-story western, two-story southern and
one-story eastern wing. The facades of the building do not have
divisions, except for drainpipes, small windows with different shapes of
openings differ in irregular arrangement and different sizes, in
accordance not with the appearance of the facades, but with the
functions of the interior.
In the courtyard of the chambers near the
western wing, you can see an antique-style stone porch, the former one
was broken back in the 18th century. Inside, vaulted ceilings,
intra-wall staircases and other wonders inherent in the architecture of
the 17th century have been preserved. Residential were the upper wooden
floors of a three-story and more modest two-story houses, connected by a
passage. The east wing housed the kitchens. The lower floors and cellars
had no heating and served as warehouses, while the second and third
floors of the chambers were heated by stoves.
The first and
second chambers of the Menshikovs (XVII century), st. Sovetskaya, 50.
Two buildings adjoining each other: a three-story eastern one - the
first chambers, a one-story western one - the second ones. They were
built at the end of the 17th century and their first owners were the
merchants Menshikovs. At the beginning of the 18th century, the merchant
family became impoverished, and in the 18th century the second chambers
were empty. Later, the chambers had many owners, which is why they are
known by different names. Now they are sometimes called by the names of
the last pre-revolutionary owners: the first chambers are the first
house of Sutotsky, and the second ones are the house of Yakovlev. Until
the 19th century, the chambers came in their original form, although
they were pretty dilapidated. Later they were rebuilt, and in 1940 the
basements of the buildings were adapted for a bomb shelter.
The
first chambers are well preserved, the facade of the stone part of the
building remained intact, although the porch and the mound adjoining it
were lost. The first two floors of the chambers were used as warehouses.
On the third floor, instead of the traditional trough (a place for a
feast), there were two chambers for receiving guests with a vestibule
between them. From the entrance there was an exit to a wooden ambush,
and even higher there were two wooden residential floors.
During
the years of existence, the second chambers have lost the third stone
floor, and their lower floors have been rather heavily altered. But on
the other hand, unlike other Pskov civil buildings of the 17th century,
they have an external ornament in the form of architraves, reminiscent
of the decor common at that time outside of Pskov, although with local
flavor. The porch was restored during the restoration of the XX century.
Fourth Chambers of the Menshikovs (Second House of Sutotsky), st.
Soviet, 50 a. The house is located to the east of the first Menshikov
chambers, on the other side of their main facade. The house was
significantly rebuilt, its appearance was significantly distorted. Now
the building is uninhabited and is almost in ruins.
Third
chambers of the Menshikovs, st. Nekrasova, 10 a. The house is located to
the east of the fourth chambers and since the 19th century it has
acquired another name - the house of Marina Mnishek, who, according to
local legend, stayed here for three days at the beginning of the 17th
century. This legend has nothing to do with real historical events, in
fact, the house itself appeared no earlier than the 1670s. But, perhaps,
this name has something to do with the promise of False Dmitry to give
the Pskov lands to his bride, Marina Mnishek. The house is connected by
underground passages with other chambers of the Menshikovs and, very
likely, was built almost simultaneously with them. Now the building is
not used and has an unsightly appearance.
Chambers on Romanova
Gora (House of the leader of the nobility), st. Soviet, 52a. The now
mothballed building was built in the last quarter of the 17th century
and rebuilt in the 19th century by the provincial architect Franz Jabs.
The only thing left in the building from the Pskov architectural
tradition is a porch with characteristic massive pillars. Back in the
middle of the 20th century, the chambers were inhabited - they housed a
court, and then a conservatory.
Chambers of Podznoev (XVII), st.
Nekrasov, 1.3. The history of the construction of three buildings in an
old residential courtyard and the name of their first owners are
unknown. Already from the beginning of the 18th century, the chambers
remained escheated, and at the end of the same century the courtyard was
bought by the merchant Podznoev, whose descendants owned it in the 19th
century. Actually, by the 19th century, the chambers were heavily
rebuilt, although their cellars retained their original appearance. One
of the buildings turned into ruins, the other two were dilapidated until
the middle of the 20th century. The peculiarities of the structure of
the buildings made it possible to date Podznoev's chambers to the 17th
century. In 2009, the two surviving buildings were restored and are now
used as a hotel and restaurant complex. Judging by the photographs, the
restorers have preserved some of the interiors of the lower floor,
including the vaulted ceilings.
Church of the Old Ascension (XVI
century), st. Soviet, 64 a. The Starovoznesensky Monastery has been
known since the 14th century. The first mention of the Church of the
Ascension dates back to 1420. Before the construction of the wooden wall
of the Roundabout City in 1465, the church stood in the suburbs and even
then was called old. The stone Old Ascension Church was founded in 1467,
but the building that has come down to us, which had a two-span belfry
and two aisles, southern and northern, was built in the second half of
the 16th century. In 1833, the southern chapel in the name of the
Nativity of the Virgin was dismantled due to dilapidation, and a church
of the same name appeared nearby - a curious monument of Russian
provincial architecture of the 19th century.
In the 19th century, the
Ascension Church was repeatedly remodeled, which led to the loss of
ancient forms. In the middle of the 19th century, a four-tiered bell
tower was built behind the altar of the Nativity Church, from which only
the first tier has come down to us. Having survived many more
alterations later, during the Great Patriotic War, the church lost the
upper part of the drum and the dome. At present, after careful research
by the restorers, the church has been restored in its ancient forms.
The church is in all respects a typical Pskov temple. A three-part apse,
decorated with belts of a runner and a curb, adjoins a four-pillared
quadrangle worked with shoulder blades, and its middle part is also with
roller stains. The church has an eight-slope roof, a drum decorated with
traditional ornaments and an onion dome covered with a wooden plowshare.
The walls of the symmetrically placed aisles do not have decor, on the
narthex along the axis of the building there is a restored three-span
belfry, and an ancient porch is placed in front of the porch. The cross
was made in the 1960s based on samples from the 15th-16th centuries.
To the west of Sovetskaya Street are located:
Church of the
Assumption from Polonishche (1811), st. Georgievskaya, 3a. This is a
rare church in Pskov in the style of provincial classicism. Placed near
the location of the ancient Assumption Church in 1811 at the expense of
A.L. Shishkova, grandmother of the Decembrist M.A. Nazimova. The old
Assumption Church, known since 1417, by the beginning of the 19th
century, was completely dilapidated and was dismantled. The current
color scheme (a combination of white and light blue) was adopted behind
the church in 1864. In 1876, a wooden one-story house of the clergy was
built next to the temple (it did not reach us), and in 1909 a brick
house of the clergy was also built a little to the east of the church -
it has survived to this day. In 1936, the church was closed and until
1948, apparently, was not used in any way. Then it was adapted to store
the funds of the State Archives of the Pskov Region.
The new
church is made of brick and has a symmetrical axial composition.
Four-column porticos of the Doric order with triangular pediments adjoin
the quadrilateral square in plan with rounded corners on three sides.
The east façade has a similar portico, but its columns are set against
the wall. The light drum ends with a dome with a small deaf drum topped
with a cross. To the south of the building is a slender three-tiered
bell tower with a spire.
The building of the former Pskov male
gymnasium (late 19th–early 20th century), st. Kalinina, 5. A historical
monument, where, according to many memorial plaques on the building,
several famous people from Pskov studied, including Soviet writers V.A.
Kaverin and Yu.N. Tynyanov and biologist L.A. Zilber.
Church of
Joachim and Anna (XVI century), st. Kalinina, 26. The date of
construction of the temple is unknown, but the features of the
architecture make it possible to attribute it to the 16th century. The
Yakiman convent, to which the temple belonged, was already known in the
1310s. The church itself was first mentioned in 1544 on the occasion of
a fire experienced by the monastery. At the end of the 18th and
beginning of the 19th century, the monastery was abolished. At the end
of the 19th century, the church underwent significant alterations, which
noticeably distorted its appearance. So, by the beginning of the 20th
century, it had a simple four-pitched roof, two drums stacked on top of
each other and a small onion dome. At the porch, as was customary in
Pskov in the 19th century, side openings were laid. In the middle of the
20th century, the temple was restored, if possible, returning it to its
original appearance.
The church is typical for its time and
consists of a four-column roof covered with a restored eight-slope roof,
a southern chapel and a northern extension without an altar. In the
center of the narthex there is a two-span belfry, in front of the
narthex there is a porch, made in traditional forms for Pskov. Three
semicircular apses adjoin the altar part of the church. Their generally
traditional decor has one unique feature: in the runner decorating the
eaves of the apses, the bricks are slightly hewn to the outer ends of
the ribs, so that the depressions converge in depth and widen on the
surface. The church is crowned with a drum with an onion dome and a
cross.
Church of the Intercession and Nativity of the Virgin from
Prolom (XVI century) , st. Sverdlova, 1. The unusual double Church of
the Nativity and Intercession in the Corner is located on the territory
of the former Intercession Monastery, in the very corner of the
fortress, next to the Intercession Tower and attracts the attention of
tourists not only with its unusual composition, but also with its close
proximity to the fortress walls and to the Intercession Tower . At
first, there was a single temple of the Intercession, but in 1544 the
monastery burned down. According to one version, soon after the fire,
the southern Church of the Intercession was restored, and the second
temple appeared next to the Intercession Church after the lifting of the
Polish siege of 1581–1582. He had a dedication in the name of the
Nativity of the Virgin, which coincided with the day of the failed
Polish assault. Another version, confirmed by the presence of a common
load-bearing wall, claims that both temples appeared at the same time,
immediately after the siege of Stefan Batory.
The current view of
the church is a product of the restoration of 1961-1964, made according
to the surviving remains of the church and the images of the church on
ancient icons. During the restoration, the vaults of the northern
building, both domes and the belfry were restored.
The temple
consists of two fused, crowdless, single-apse churches, each with its
own narthex, but with a common two-span belfry, set along the axis of
the building. The facades are devoid of any decor, the apses and the
drum are decorated with a variety of the Pskov runner. Both quarters are
covered with a gable roof.
Church of St. George from Vzvoz
(1494) , Georgievskaya street, 1. The church stands on the banks of the
Great, next to St. George's vzvoz, as they called specially arranged
rises from the river to the shore in Pskov. Nearby, closer to the river,
there are the remains of an earthen battery, sprinkled by Peter I to the
fortress wall. Church of St. George with Vzvozu is one of the few built
in the 14th century, although at the very end of it. However, the
composition of the building was close to the parish churches of the XVI
century.
Now the church is a traditional four-column quadrangle
with three apses. Aisles and galleries common for temples of this type
were broken in the first third of the 19th century when trying to put in
order a fairly dilapidated structure. The height of the former southern
aisle can be easily estimated by the level of processing of the quarter
with blades. During the same repair of the 19th century, the ancient
belfry, which stood on the southern wall of the quadrangle, was also
broken. When the four-slope coating appeared, history is silent. The
porch at the western narthex was added in the 17th century, and the
two-span belfry above the porch was created in 1831. In addition to the
traditional ornament, the wailing church drum has a rare belt of green
glazed tiles of the 15th century. The famous Pskov ornament on the apses
is plastered.
Church of the Mid-Pentecost, st. Children's, 3. The
church is located on the former courtyard of the suburban
Spaso-Eliazarovsky monastery. The exact date of its construction is
unknown. The chronicle indicates the year 1494, but most likely it was
the predecessor of the current church, which is usually dated to the
17th century. At least in 1694, it definitely existed, as evidenced by a
stone slab with an inscription about the burial of Hieromonk Abbot
Varlaam. The church was heavily rebuilt in the 19th century (the vaults
of the quadrangle and the belfry “suffered the most”), and as a result
of the alteration, it turned into a completely unique monument for
Pskov.
This one-domed temple has a simple composition of a cubic
columnless quadrangle, one apse and a refectory with a belfry on
pillars. The smooth northern facade suggests the existence of a northern
aisle or porch in former times. The roofing, as was often the case with
Pskov churches, was at some point replaced by a simple hipped roof. A
completely unique open porch set on pillars. In the 19th century,
pillars were attached to the two-span belfry above the porch, thus
arranging an unusual hipped bell tower.
Chamber in the courtyard
of the Eleazarovsky Monastery (XVI century), st. Children's, 1b. Next to
the Church of Mid-Pentecost there is a two-story building of the
pastor's cells of the former courtyard of the Spaso-Eliazarovsky
Monastery. The lower stone part of the building, presumably, dates from
the 16th century, while the upper wooden part was made after 1945.
You can get to Zapskovye from the central part of the
city either along the Sovetsky bridge leading from Krom to Staroy
Primost, or along the newly built pedestrian bridge near Brody, leading
from Krasnye Partizan Street to the Church of the Epiphany. Zapskovye
has always been simpler and more monotonous than the interfluve part of
the city. There was no Market in it, and rich merchants did not build
here until the second half of the 17th century. The area was
distinguished by a low building density, including the courtyards of
small and medium-sized townspeople, a dozen parish churches and several
freely spread out monasteries. The main streets of the district were
Zvanitsa (now Leon Pozemsky) and Bolshaya Zapskovskaya (now Herzen and
Verkhne-Beregovaya streets). It was around them until the 17th century
that parish churches and monasteries were concentrated, and later Pskov
rich people began to build.
Church of Cosmas and Damian from
Primost (1463), st. Leon Pozemsky, 7. The first mention of the church is
in 1458 on the occasion of the fire that destroyed it. A new stone
building was built in 1463, but during the fire of 1507, the church was
badly damaged by the explosion of gunpowder stored in the southwestern
aisle. The church played an important role in the life of the city and
therefore was quickly restored after this incident. At the same time,
its original sixteen-slope roof was simplified to eight-slope, new
aisles were made and the cupola was restored. A separate building was
now erected to store gunpowder. Its lower massive part was used as a
warehouse, and a large four-span belfry was placed on top. Under the
belfry, in the upper tier of a cubic volume, in the 16th century, a
unique small church was built. From it, vaults resting on two pillars,
as well as doors, niches and windows, have come down to us unchanged. In
the 18th century, the belfry was broken, and on the same massive base
they piled up an octagonal bell tower typical of its time. It was
destroyed during the Great Patriotic War, but the foundation of the
belfry still stands not far from the church, inside the church fence.
The porch, added to the original west porch in the 17th century, was
later remade. On the other hand, the rarest example of a 17th-century
fence has been preserved, although not in its original form. In other
respects, the church is a traditional Pskov temple in the form of a
one-domed quadrangle with a three-part segmentation of the facades with
shoulder blades and a typical Pskov ornament on the apses and the drum.
The dome of the church ends with a beautiful gilded cross of the 17th
century with an openwork apple.
Church of Elijah Wet (1677), st.
Volkova, 9. A rare representative of the Pskov churches of the 17th
century, built in 1677 on the territory of the ancient Ilyinsky
Monastery, located in the swampy part of the Zapskovye, for which he
received the name “Ilya Wet” among the people. Despite its later origin,
in terms of composition and construction methods, the church is closer
to the monastic churches of the Pskov school of the 14th-16th centuries.
The building has come down to us with minor alterations, in particular,
the current hemispherical dome has replaced the original onion dome.
The composition of the building includes a four-column one-apse
quadrangle with an under-church, which is adjoined by the northern
chapel and the southern gallery placed on basements. Along the axis of
the temple there is a belfry topped with a spire of the octagonal type
on a quadrangle and a simple porch. The porches with large open openings
adjoin the bell tower on both sides. The tapered drum, a sign of the
17th century, is decorated with traditional geometric patterns.
Chambers Trubinsky, st. Leon Pozemsky, 20 and 22. Two buildings of the
chambers were built at the end of the 17th century by order of the
wealthy merchant Ivan Trubinsky, whose descendants owned the houses
until the middle of the 19th century. Since the end of the 18th century,
the owners began to rent out houses. At first, they housed a bank
office, and since 1829, a city hospital. At the beginning of the 20th
century, Agapov's tobacco factory was located in the buildings, and
shortly before the revolution, they were transferred to the process
engineer G.Yu. Meyer, who built the famous Art Nouveau house nearby.
Meyer adapted the houses of the Trubinskys as a flax warehouse, and the
buildings remained the warehouse after the revolution. The chambers were
badly damaged during the Great Patriotic War.
Now it is a pair of
inconspicuous two-story buildings, distinguished by the absence of
windows on the first floor and deep window openings on the second. The
first chambers (house number 20) have an L-shaped plan and, together
with the second house, form an inner courtyard, to which stone front
porches used to lead. The yard can be seen from behind the old stone
fence, preserved between the houses from the side of Leon Pozemsky
Street. Having lost their former beauty, the houses are nevertheless of
interest to researchers of ancient Pskov civil architecture. According
to the Pskov tradition, the chambers had upper wooden floors with a
mound near the western facade and were covered with red unglazed Dutch
tiles, fragments of which were found in the original masonry of the
building. The interior decoration of the chambers has not been
preserved.
Meyer's former home (circa 1901), st. Leon Pozemsky,
22 a. The only building in the city in the Art Nouveau style was
intended to house the administration of the rope factory, founded by the
German process engineer G.Yu. Meyer. At the end of the 19th and
beginning of the 20th century, Meyer was well known in the city.
Starting with the construction of a steam mill, he then opened a
technical office for the purchase of production machines and the sale of
cement and phosphate fertilizers. Having become rich, he acquired some
real estate and opened his own rope factory in 1896, having purchased
the necessary equipment in England. After the fire of 1900, Meyer
quickly built new buildings and it was at this time that a two-story
office building in the Art Nouveau style appeared, adjacent to the
second chambers of the Trubinskys. During its century-old history, the
building has not changed much.
Chambers of the Postnikovs (XVII
century), st. Oleg Koshevoy, 2 and 2 b. The first owners of the chambers
were the wealthy Pskov merchants Postnikovs, who apparently built the
building at the end of the 17th century. It seems that the Postnikovs
owned the building in the 18th century. In any case, one of the
Postnikovs sold the chambers in 1784 to a bank office. However, popular
rumor says that already from the beginning of the 18th century there was
a government building in the chambers and a prison with it, which gave
the building the nickname "Sack". By the way, the street on which the
building stands was called Meshkovskaya until 1949, and then it was
named after Oleg Koshevoy. From 1784 to 1788, Nikolai Petrovich Rezanov,
one of the founders of the Russian-American Company, served in the Pskov
Chamber of the Civil Court with the rank of collegiate assessor, well
known to his contemporaries thanks to the rock opera by A. Rybnikov
based on the verses by A. Voznesensky "Juno and Avos" and the production
of the same name Theater of the Lenin Komsomol. Rezanov was often and
for a long time seconded to a bank office, which was at that time in the
Postnikovs' chambers.
In the 1840s, the chambers underwent a major
renovation and little has been rebuilt since. Until 1944, between the
main massive two-story building and a one-story outbuilding standing
parallel to it, there was a gate that opened the entrance to the
courtyard. Now the main building houses the central library of the Pskov
region, which allows you to see its internal structure, where the
ancient vaults should be preserved. The outbuilding appears to have
undergone less alteration, apart from the loss of the upper timber floor
in an 1840s rebuild.
Church of the Resurrection from the Stadium
(XVI century), st. Nabat, 4a. At least since 1458, there was a nunnery
on Stadishche, which was the name of the place around the current
church, which was abolished in 1765. The first mention of the church
dates back to 1532, but it is unlikely that the age of the building that
has come down to us should be counted from this date: the unfinished
stone Church of the Resurrection was mentioned in connection with a
strong fire in Zapskovye. Apparently, from the 16th century, the walls
of the four-pillar quadrangle and three semicircular apses have come
down to us. All other parts of the church appeared later. The southern
chapel, the narthex, the porch and the northern gallery belong to the
end of the 17th century. At the same time, instead of a free-standing
wooden belfry, a two-span belfry appeared above the porch, similar to
the belfry of the church of Sergius from Zaluzhya. The third bay, which
differs in shape, near the left edge of the belfry, appeared only at the
end of the 19th century. Except for the unusual design of the southern
limit in the form of two hanging arches, the decor of the church is
traditional for Pskov architecture. The facades of the quadrangle are
divided by three-part shoulder blades, three apses of the church are
decorated with a characteristic Pskov ornament, and the central one is
also decorated with roller patterns. The fourth apse belonging to the
chapel was left without decor. The drum is decorated with a cornice in
the form of an arched belt, and under it is a decorative belt of two
curbs with a runner in the middle. The current eight-slope covering of
the chevterik is the result of restoration at the beginning of the 21st
century.
Church of Varlaam Khutynsky (1495), st. Leon Pozemsky,
53. The church stands right next to the fortress wall, next to the
dilapidated Varlaam tower, which once towered over the Varlaam gates.
The first church in the name of the Novgorod saint Varlaam Khutynsky was
a votive one. The wooden temple was erected in 1466 in one day to get
rid of the Varlaam pestilence that mowed down the people (most likely it
was a plague). In 1495, instead of a wooden one, a stone church was
erected, which inscribed its own heroic page in the military history of
the city. In 1615, the Swedish king Gustav Adolf tried to take the Pskov
fortress from the side of the Varlaam Gates, which fell under heavy
bombardment. The Swedes managed to destroy the Varlaam tower, but they
came under fierce fire coming from the church dome of the Varlaam
church, and were forced to retreat.
The Varlaam Church is quite a
typical Pskov temple, although it has a design feature that was obsolete
by the end of the 15th century in the form of a cross-domed ceiling
system with lowered girth arches. What caused the introduction of this
element - scientists argue, and our business is only to mention this
oddity. The temple is a composition of a four-pillar quadrangle with one
apse. From the very beginning, the church had a northern gallery and a
southern aisle, but they were rebuilt several times, the last time in
1875. The porch is also a product of the 19th century. But the
three-part vestibule with wide arched openings and the two-span belfry
standing on it were built simultaneously with the quadrangle. The roof
and drum of the church were remade in the 17th century, and in addition
to the traditional Pskov belts, two rows of green tiles appeared on the
drum, later plastered and then restored during the restoration of the
20th century. It is not known when the original eight-pitched roof was
replaced by a simplified four-pitched roof. The decor of the church with
its three-part division of facades and corbels on the apse and drum is
quite common for Pskov. The facades of the southern aisle of the 19th
century are made in the spirit of eclecticism: paired windows with
semicircular endings, architraves of complex configuration, rustication,
etc.
Church of the Icon Not Made by Hands from Zhabya Lavitsa
(presumably, the 16th century) , st. Pervomaiskaya, 26 (the house number
is 27 on the maps, but on the address plate on the church - 26). Lavitsa
in Pskov since ancient times was called bridges for crossing swampy
places. In one of these places, on Zhabya Lavitsa, in 1487 a wooden
votive church in the name of the Image Not Made by Hands was erected in
a day. When it was replaced with a stone one, no one knows. The most
ancient parts of the extant structure - the narthex, the porch, the
belfry and the southern aisle - date back to the end of the 17th
century. In 1852, the church was going to be dismantled and even
partially carried out this intention. But in 1857 it was restored.
The church has a very picturesque composition of several simple
volumes. From the east, a massive semi-cylindrical apse adjoins the
cubic pillarless quadrangle. On the western side there is a porch and a
porch covered with two slopes, and above the western wall of the
southern aisle there is a two-span belfry with a gable roof, which gives
a special zest to the whole composition. In front of the church there is
a gate, decorated, like the porch, with flutes that came into fashion
only in the 17th century. On both sides of the gate there are fragments
of a fence that is missing from the other sides.
The chetverik has a
flat wooden ceiling, on which a decorative drum with an onion dome
rests. The decor of the facades is modest: from the former three-part
articulation of the northern and southern facades with blades, only two
blades remained, and even those were pretty cut off by later rounded
window openings. The southern aisle of the church with its rectangular
apse and the luminary located above it - its slit-like window openings,
untouched by time, deserve special attention - the best preserved. It is
covered with a box vault and crowned with a decorative drum with a small
bulbous dome. The most remarkable thing in the chapel is the ceramic
floor of the 17th century, preserved in its eastern part. Nothing like
it could be found in Pskov. True, it is apparently impossible to see it:
during the reconstruction, the floor was covered with a layer of sand
and covered with wooden flooring. But, according to rumors, it was laid
out of ceramic tiles that had the shape of squares, rhombuses,
parallelograms and narrow rectangles and had a color range from yellow
to dark brown.
Church of Cosmas and Damian from Gremyachaya Gora
(1540), st. Gremyachaya, 7. The church stands in one of the most
picturesque places in Pskov, on Gremyachaya Mountain, the foot of which
was chosen by city blacksmiths back in the 14th century. The first stone
church in the name of the patrons of the blacksmiths, Saints Cosmas and
Damian, is mentioned in the annals under 1383. At the same time, the
Kozmodemyansky (Gremyatsky) monastery was founded, which existed until
1764. In 1540, a new stone church was erected, from which only the walls
of the quadrangle and three semicircular apses with ancient geometric
ornaments preserved on them have survived. Like other Pskov churches of
the 16th century, the building was originally surrounded on three sides
by galleries or side chapels, and there was a belfry on the south wall
of the quadrangle. In the 17th century, the church underwent significant
alterations: almost everything was broken, including galleries,
vestibules, the western pair of pillars, vaults, the dome and the
belfry. On the western side, a small vestibule, which has come down to
us, was erected, as well as a porch and a bell tower that had already
died in the 20th century. At the same time, the eight-slope roof was
replaced by a four-slope roof, on top of which a dense decorative drum
with a small onion dome was placed.
The building of the tannery,
st. Rattlesnake. Going down the path lost in the grass from the
Gremyachaya Mountain to Pskov, we will find ourselves in a place known
since ancient times as the Wolf Pits, where a century ago there was an
entrance to an underground gallery - either a hiding place, or an
underground passage to the Gremyachy tower. Two buildings of the 17th
century have been preserved here - a one-story stone building, which was
once a tannery, and the ruins of Yakov Syrnikov's chambers. In the 19th
century, the barracks of the Yenisei regiment were located nearby and
the one-story building was used as a bakery, and the officer corps was
located in the chambers. The factory building has been partially
restored and mothballed. In the lower part of the southern, eastern and
western facades, fragments of ancient masonry have been preserved.
Inside, three interior rooms have been restored, where you can admire
the ancient vaults.
Church of the Epiphany from Zapskovye
(1496) , st. Herzen, 7. One of the most beautiful churches in Pskov, it
is also known under the name "at Brody", which comes from its location
at the former crossing over Pskov. Picturesquely located on a high green
hill on the banks of the Pskov River, the church has a composition
typical of ancient Pskov churches consisting of many volumes - a
four-column quadrangle with three adjoining apses, galleries and two
aisles, each with its own apse. Their symmetrical arrangement is
skillfully disguised by a four-span belfry attached from the
northwestern edge on a massive base. The belfry is remarkable not only
for its size, but also for the non-rhythmic width of the spans, matched
to the size of the bells.
The history of alterations of the
church is as follows. Built at the end of the 15th century, at the end
of the 17th century, the eight-slope roof was simplified to four-slope.
At the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries, the shape of the dome was
changed, a buttress that has survived to this day was attached to the
belfry from the west, the southern aisle was rebuilt, and the head and
drum of the north were changed. During the Great Patriotic War, the
wooden parts of the building were destroyed by fire. After the war,
restoration was carried out twice - in the middle of the 20th century
and the beginning of the 21st century. During the latter, the shape of
the central dome was again changed and both aisles were recreated.
Mass residential development on the left bank of
the Great River appeared only in the 14th century, although
archaeologists discover earlier buildings around the ancient roads.
But in Zavelichye there have always been many monasteries: in
addition to the Mirozhsky and Ivanovsky monasteries that have come
down to us, there were seven more. Poorly protected, Zavelichye was
often subjected to almost complete destruction and not so much has
come down to us from its ancient buildings: archaeological sites,
one complete monastic ensemble and several churches - almost all of
this is located along the Velikaya coast. Otherwise, Zavelichye,
where multi-storey construction is allowed, differs little from any
modern city in Russia.
The Mirozhsky Monastery is located on
the spit of the Mirozha and Velikaya rivers, almost opposite the
Pokrovskaya Tower. First mentioned in 1156, it was founded,
apparently, a little earlier by the Novgorod bishop Nifont. Despite
the vulnerable location, the Mirozh Monastery never had
fortifications and its territory was usually surrounded only by a
low wooden fence, and a tyn from the west. The current low stone
fence was made in 1799-1805. It happened that the monastery fell
into the hands of enemies or served as a quarter for the Moscow
rati. During the siege of Stafan Batory, cannons were dragged into
the monastery bell tower, from which they fired red-hot cannonballs
at the city. In a word, the monastery was not very suitable for a
contemplative monastic life.
The most ancient building of the
monastery, and of all Pskov, is the Transfiguration Cathedral,
world-famous thanks to the unique frescoes of the 12th century
preserved in it, stylistically close to Byzantine examples. The
exact dates of the construction of the cathedral are unknown, but
all sources agree that it appeared in the middle of the 12th century
through the efforts of Archbishop Nifont, a Greek by birth. It is
believed that the cathedral was built by an artel of Novgorodians
who came along with Nifont, but due to the peculiarities of the
internal structure, it is believed that Byzantine craftsmen were
among the builders. By the way, the only decorative decoration of
the cathedral in the form of an arched frieze on the drum can be
considered greetings from the Novgorodians.
The design of the
cathedral changed as it was built. It began as a square cross-domed
temple with a clearly identified cruciform structure. It was
achieved by lowering the corner volumes in the western part and
using unevenly high apses in the eastern part of the building.
However, already in the course of construction, the low western
compartments were built up to the level of the central vault,
although the internal cross-domed composition, unique in its
structure in Rus', remained unchanged. In it, the supports for the
unusually spacious dome and wide drum are not pillars, but walls cut
through by arches. The additional volume of the dome was gained by
reducing the thickness of the walls of the drum, and along the way,
the weight of the entire upper part of the structure also decreased.
Due to the lack of dedicated verticals, the interior of the church
looks extremely solid and monolithic. And the frescoes covering the
dome, drum and other internal surfaces of the cathedral only enhance
this effect.
Later, in the 16th century, a porch with a
traditional Pskov belfry appeared near the western façade; Over the
past centuries, the height of the soil around the church has grown
by 2 meters, from which its proportions have become squat. All this
led to the fact that the only angle from which the church even
remotely resembles the original temple of the XII century is the
view from the east, from the side of the river.
The frescoes
of the Transfiguration Cathedral belong to the Byzantine school.
Their history is full of bitter losses. The original painting
appeared already during the construction of the temple. In the 17th
century, like many monuments of Russian monumental painting, the
frescoes were whitewashed and opened only at the end of the 19th
century. But, as usual, someone did not like their shabby appearance
and in 1902 they were rewritten "in the Old Russian style",
fortunately, with the preservation of the iconography of the plots.
Only in the 1920s did the re-opening of the thoroughly damaged
frescoes begin, but even now about half of the ancient painting is
under a layer of renovations from 1902. Among the authentic frescoes
cleared are images of the Annunciation, the Nativity, the Assumption
of the Mother of God (with the exception of the lower part) and the
Entombment.
The frescoes are often closed for viewing due to
inclement weather, but there is usually an exception for tour groups
and you can usually join them. As of the summer of 2013, the
Transfiguration Cathedral is closed for restoration and it is
impossible to enter inside.
Another monument is located in
the northern part of the monastery Stefan's Gate Church. In the 18th
century, a fraternal building was built near the church, and in the
1870s, a bell tower was built into the gap between the church and
the cells. All this uneven composition with elements of Pskov
medieval architecture, Naryshkin baroque, classicism and
neoclassicism formed a new “splendid facade” of the monastery,
blocking the view of the Transfiguration Cathedral.
The
current Stefan's Church, together with the gate, was built at the
end of the 17th century on the site of an older building from 1546,
which, in turn, replaced an even older church from 1404. The former
wooden gates stood to the west of the church, and above them stood
the wooden St. Nicholas Church, which disappeared in the 18th
century. To the west, there were wooden rectory chambers, which were
considered the decoration of the monastery.
Mirozhsky
arboretum. It is located next to the Mirozhsky monastery. The park
was established in 1966 and contains several rare species of trees
and shrubs. In 2013, they decided to improve the park and,
apparently, the work has not yet been completed.
Church of
the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin in Butyrki (1773-1777),
Olginskaya (Krasnoarmeyskaya) embankment, 47. A rare church for
Pskov of the late 18th century with a traditional three-dimensional
composition and decoration in the spirit of the provincial baroque.
It was built in the former Streltsy Sloboda on the left bank of the
Mirozhka River. The church was erected at the expense of the Don and
Sebezh Cossacks and consists of several volumes: a crowdless cubic
quadrangle, a vestibule and a three-tiered octagonal bell tower
crowned with a spire. The only apse has an unusual five-sided shape.
Church of Alexander Nevsky (1908), st. Mirnaya, 1. The
regimental church of the Omsk regiment based in Pskov was built in
the "Russian style" according to the standard design of military
churches. In total, there were several dozen such churches in the
Russian Empire. Despite the "standard project", the temple in the
style of late eclecticism is absolutely unique for Pskov.
Church of Pope Clement XVI (XVI century), Krasnoarmeiskaya (or
Olginskaya) Embankment, 16. Standing on the steep bank of the Great,
the Church of Clement is the only thing left of the Clement
Monastery, devastated by the Swedes and subsequently closed. The
church, in general, is typical of the Pskov church architecture of
the 16th century, although it differs in some details. The
four-pillar quadrangle is placed on an unusually high sub-church,
three apses adjoin it, and on the south side there is an
18th-century chapel with a small decorative cupola. Another feature
of the church is the lack of galleries. The once eight-slope
covering in the lost past was remade into a four-slope, as evidenced
by the decor of the facades cut off from above. Over the years of
its life, the church lost its vestibule, porch and belfry. The shape
of the dome is also changed; it is crowned with a 17th-century cross
with a small spherical dome under it. The semicircular apses of
different heights, like the drum, are decorated with traditional
curb and runner belts, while the decor of the higher middle apse is
complemented by roll patterns. Inside the church is well preserved,
but the ancient interior decoration is lost.
Church of St.
Nicholas from the Stone Fence (XV-XVI century) Wikidata element,
st. Roza Luxembourg, 17. The only surviving building of the Nikolsky
Kamennogradsky Monastery, which stood on the old Izborskaya road
already in the XIV-XV centuries. Although the first mention of the
church dates back to 1481, the date of construction of the current
building is unknown. According to the features of its appearance, it
is believed that it appeared no later than the 16th century. During
the Livonian War of 1581–1583, the church was destroyed. A century
later, in 1698, it was restored at the private expense of Vasily
Kolyagin, a townsman.
The church has a composition,
relatively rare for Pskov, of a columnless quadrangle with a single
semicircular apse adjoining it. In the 19th century, a new wooden
one was added to the west instead of the old stone narthex. In
ancient times, the church had a belfry, which was later replaced by
a wooden bell tower, which stood until the 1830s. In the 19th
century, the eight-pitched plank covering was replaced with a metal
four-pitched roof, at the same time the window openings of the
northern and southern walls were hewn. Ancient slit openings in the
apse were laid, but they were preserved on the drum. The cupola was
originally wooden, upholstered with scales, and the current metal
coating, apparently, appeared along with the alteration of the roof.
Under the quadrangle and the vestibule there is an under-church
covered with box vaults, which you can go down from the north-east
side of the apse. The decor of the church is simple - the
segmentation of the facades of the quadrangle with shoulder blades,
and an extremely modest belt on the drum made of curb and runner.
Chapel of Anastasia the Roman (1911) , Rizhskaya st. (on the
right at the Olginsky bridge, if you stand facing the river). The
first Anastasievskaya chapel on the left bank of the Great River was
mentioned in 1710. Then, to save from the epidemic, a votive wooden
chapel was erected - they were usually built on the same day. The
stone chapel, which soon replaced the wooden one, stood until the
beginning of the 20th century, when it was decided to build a
permanent bridge across the Velikaya - until then, every
spring-summer season began with the construction of a pontoon
bridge. During construction, the left end of the bridge had to be
raised, for which an embankment was made on the shore. It was
impossible to save the chapel, so the old one was demolished, and an
embankment was made above the foundation to the level of the bridge,
where they put a new chapel, designed by A.V. Shchusev in Art
Nouveau style with stylization of Pskov medieval architecture. In
October 1911, the chapel was consecrated, and in 1913 it was painted
by G. Chirikov based on sketches by N.K. Roerich, two of which are
kept in the Russian Museum.
Under Soviet power, the "life" of
the chapel did not work out. It was closed in 1924 and they tried to
adapt it to the needs of the proletariat. She has been a book kiosk,
a worker's cooperative stall, a movie theater box office, a
stationery kiosk, and even a kerosene shop. The frescoes, of course,
were plastered, and the drum with the cupola was destroyed. The
Great Patriotic War spared the chapel, but in 1969 fate overtook it
in the form of the construction of another bridge. Like its
predecessor, the chapel turned out to be out of place: the
embankment needed to be remade, and it was decided to demolish the
chapel as “having no artistic value”. It was only by a miracle that
they managed to save it from active officials and, having cut it
into two parts, they lowered the chapel from the embankment onto the
bank of the Great and restored it.
Currently, the chapel
stands behind a fence and can only be seen from the Olginsky Bridge.
It seems that most of the time it is in a closed state, so it is
almost impossible to see the paintings.
Church of the
Assumption at the Ferry (1521, with a free-standing belfry), Riga
Avenue, 2. Paromenskaya Church is almost impossible to miss. It is
very large, with the most massive belfry, and it also stands in a
very busy place - near the bridge connecting the city center with
Zavelichye, almost opposite the Pskov Krom. The bridge in this place
has existed since time immemorial, but until the beginning of the
20th century it was built on rafts, which were dismantled in the
winter and collected after the flood. In the meantime, the bridge
was under construction, a ferry service operated, which gave the
name to the church standing next to it. If you want to imagine how
the church looked like in antiquity, you should go down from the
modern Olginsky bridge raised to the embankment and approach it from
the side of the river, as if from the former ferry crossing.
The first Paromenskaya church appeared in 1443. The next, stone, was
built in 1521. And it acquired forms close to modern ones at the
turn of the 17th and 18th centuries. From the very beginning, the
church was distinguished by its majestic scale. The central volume
of the monument is an ancient four-pillared quadrangle, covered with
box vaults. From the east, three ancient semicircular apses adjoin
it, the central one is distinguished by its large size and
traditional roller patterns as decoration. In ancient times, the
quadrangle had an eight-pitched roof, and the light drum with
slotted window openings was crowned with an onion dome. The ancient
aisles were not preserved; at the turn of the 17th and 18th
centuries they were replaced by two new ones with rectangular apses
typical of their time and small decorative cupolas. Around the same
time, the shape of the central dome also changed, above which, until
1944, there was a wooden cross with gilded copper cladding. The
cross was crowned with a cast figurine of a dove slightly larger
than a real bird. The dove is a symbol of the Holy Spirit and,
according to legend, its grace will remain over the city while the
bird sits on the cross of the Paromenskaya church. The current
cross, also with a dove, is an inaccurate copy of the ancient cross.
The old floors, windows and two wooden window sills from 1521 have
been preserved in the interior.
The remarkable five-span
belfry on a massive base was somewhat distorted in the late 17th and
early 18th centuries, when its poly-gabled roof, with two slopes
over each span, was replaced by a simplified four-slope roof.
Cathedral of John the Baptist (1240), st. Maxim Gorky, 1. The
Cathedral is the only surviving building of the ancient John the
Baptist (Ivanovsky) Monastery. According to the version that
developed at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, the monastery
was founded by the daughter of Polotsk prince Rogvold Efrosinya, who
became a monk in 1240. Efrosinya's husband was Prince Yaroslav
Vladimirovich of Pskov, who surrendered the city to the Germans in
1240. In 1243, the prince lured his wife out of the monastery,
calling her on a date to the Livonian city of Odempe (Bear's Head),
where she was killed by the son of Yaroslav from his first wife. The
princess was buried within the walls of the monastery founded by
her, and the monastery for many centuries turned into a burial place
for Pskov princesses. According to a relatively recent version, the
cathedral appeared earlier than the monastery itself, somewhere
around 1120-1130.
Located outside the fortress walls, the
monastery often suffered from enemy raids. So, in 1615, the Swedish
king Gustav, who settled down with an army on Snyatnaya Gora and in
Zavelichye, fired at the Pskov fortress from the territory of the
Ivanovsky Monastery for three days. In the 18th century, the John
the Baptist Monastery was one of the most famous in the Pskov
diocese and was visited by the nobility, including members of the
royal family. In 1923, the monastery was closed, and the cathedral
was transferred to the tannery, which set up a club here. Almost the
entire monastery cemetery was demolished, and its territory was
asphalted. In 1944, the cathedral was badly damaged by fire, which
destroyed almost all of the later additions. The post-war
restoration was carried out according to the project of A.L.
Maksimov, who tried, to the best of his ability, to restore the
cathedral in its original form. At the same time, the long-lost
pozakomar covering was restored, and the heads were given an ancient
helmet-like shape.
The cathedral is unique in many ways.
Firstly, unlike all other Pskov churches, built from local limestone
slabs, in addition to the slab, brick was used in the masonry of the
cathedral, the shape and composition of which differs from the local
one. Secondly, the cathedral is made on the models of large Novgorod
temples of the 12th century and has no analogues in Pskov. By the
way, this is why it is believed that it was built by Novgorod
masters.
The chetverik of the cathedral, rectangular in plan,
has six pillars that define the four-part structure of the
organization of the internal space. This structure is highlighted on
the facades by arches and vanes, turning into arcs of semicircular
zakomaras with two-stage breaks. Three powerful semicircular apses
adjoin the quadrangle from the east. The cathedral has three domes,
shifted from the center of the quadrangle: the large one is shifted
to the apses, and two small ones are to the western edge of the
building. Small domes appeared for a reason: the arched windows of
their drums were necessary to illuminate the choir located in the
western part of the building.
Alterations of the cathedral began
already in the 16th century and did not stop until the 20th century.
The southern wall of the cathedral, on which a two-span belfry of
the 16th century is located, suffered the least damage. The western
extension is the result of 17th century alterations. The decor of
the cathedral is extremely laconic. Almost its only decoration is
the arched frieze in the upper part of the drums - an element from
the arsenal of Novgorod church architecture.
The interior of the
temple deserves a special inspection. Its main volume is covered
with cylindrical vaults, the apses - with conchs, and the heads of
the drums - with domed vaults. The choir stalls in the western part
are arranged on a simple wooden deck, and a narrow internal
staircase leads to them. In the sails of the central drum and in the
walls, you can see open ancient golosniks. The paintings inside, for
the most part, are modern, but in some places the original ones have
also been preserved: at the base of the northeastern pillar there is
a "jet ornament", and on the slopes of the windows of the second
light in the central apse one can see the "book style" ornament.
Church of the Myrrh-Bearing Women (1546) , st. Kommunalnaya, 11.
The first wooden church in the name of the Holy Myrrh-Bearing Women
was built in 1536 on the “skudelnitsa”, i.e. on the site of mass
burials of those who died during pestilence. Already a decade later,
in place of the wooden church, a stone church was erected in the
form of a cubic quadrilateral, the only head of which rests on four
pillars and box vaults. Three semicircular apses with traditional
geometric ornament adjoin the quadrangle decorated with shoulder
blades. The initial coating was pozakomarny, which was often found
in Pskov in the 16th century.
In the 19th century, the church
underwent significant alterations: the old narthex and galleries
were replaced with new extensions, the southern chapel was almost
completely rebuilt (an apse with windows and ancient golosniks
remained from the ancient chapel), the roof was replaced with a
four-pitched roof, the old belfry was broken, and the cemetery was
surrounded by a fence with two-tiered gate bell tower. By the way,
several crosses of the 14th-16th centuries have been preserved in
the cemetery, and in the 20th century it was used as a burial place
for famous citizens. So, in the northern part of the cemetery there
is the grave of the famous Pskov restorer Yu.P. Spegalsky, whose
selfless work gave us the opportunity to see the features of ancient
Pskov.
Of the surviving antiquities at the Mironositskaya
Church, there is a gathering in the under-church and a tomb chapel
from the beginning of the 17th century. The doorway leading to the
gathering in the subchurch is located in the western wall of the
vestibule.
Surroundings
Around the city walls in the 15th
century, settlements appeared with a predominant wooden building,
diluted with stone parish churches. Not far from the settlements, a
huge number of monasteries grew up, the construction of which, it
seems, was so commonplace that it was not worth a special chronicle
record. As a result, the founding date of most of the monasteries
remains unknown, and we learn about their existence only from random
mentions on the occasion of out of the ordinary events. Of the many
ancient surrounding monasteries founded long before the 16th
century, only one complete ensemble has survived - the Snetogorsk
Monastery. From the rest, either separate temples scattered around
the former settlements that are part of the modern city, or
annalistic references have come down.
Picturesquely located
on the right bank of the Great, the Snetogorsky Monastery occupies
the top of the Taken Mountain - an ancient rock that gave the name
to the monastery and, in turn, named "in honor" of the local
commercial fish - snet. The date of foundation of the monastery is
lost for centuries, and the first mention in the Pskov chronicle
dates back to 1299 and is associated with the tragic death of 17
monks and Abbot Iasaph. According to one of the legends, it was
Iasaph who was the founder of the monastery. Another legend
attributes the founding of the monastery to Prince Dovmont Timothy.
The main attraction of the monastery is the Cathedral of the
Nativity of the Virgin with ancient frescoes from the beginning of
the 14th century. The cathedral was painted almost immediately after
construction, and its frescoes, although they are inferior in terms
of preservation to the paintings of the Mirozhsky Monastery,
nevertheless deserve the closest attention. Unlike the
Byzantine-style Mirozh frescoes, the Snegororsk painting is the
earliest known example of the Pskov school of monumental painting.
Unfortunately, after the transfer of the monastery to the church
authorities, the cathedral is almost always closed. An exception is
made only for tourist groups visiting the monastery on weekends.
The original composition of the cathedral largely repeated the
Transfiguration Cathedral of the Mirozhsky Monastery, differing from
it only in proportions and processing of the upper part of the dome
drum. In the 15th century, a vestibule was added to the cathedral
from the west, and in the 16th century it was replaced by a new
extension. In the 17th century, the western part of the cathedral
underwent very significant changes and since then it has consisted
of a porch, a refectory and an open porch decorated with green
glazed tiles. At the end of the 17th century, a new four-slope roof
was made, replacing the eight-slope roof of the 16th century, which,
in turn, replaced the original roofing roof. The new roof covered
the lower part of the drum and it had to be built up in order to
slightly straighten out the proportions of the entire structure.
Along the way, an ornament of the 14th century from triangular
arches was cut down, and a traditional Pskov four-row belt made of a
runner, a curb and an arched belt was made a little higher. The
ancient belt of arches was restored during the 1950 restoration.
The interior structure of the cathedral is unique for Pskov. The
space inside is divided into four parts by longitudinal walls in the
direction from the entrance to the altar part. The longitudinal
rooms of the temple are covered with closed and box vaults and are
interconnected by passages in the walls. In front of the altar,
there is a space free from the longitudinal walls, above which rises
a hollow drum, cut through by narrow light windows.
Frescoes
have been preserved on almost all the walls of the cathedral,
although their color scheme is very different from the original. The
plots of the Theotokos cycle and the Nativity of Christ are quite
canonical, and the most remarkable fresco is the composition of the
Last Judgment located in the western nave of the cathedral,
containing a number of absolutely unique details.
Other
monuments of the current convent are the St. Nicholas Church,
heavily rebuilt in 1814, the remains of the bell tower - it was half
dismantled in 1932-1935 and finished off during the Great Patriotic
War, - similar to the gates of the Mirozhsky Monastery, the Holy
Gate, built in 1805 Bishops' Chambers and a low fence with turrets.
Photo and video filming on the territory of the monastery,
although not prohibited, is not “blessed”, which leads to unpleasant
squabbles with elderly nuns.
About 300 meters from the Taken
Mountain, on a low hill, there is a pretty chapel of the Four
Hierarchs. In 1913, the icon "Selected Saints" of the 15th century
was taken out of it, now stored in the Tretyakov Gallery.
Church of Peter and Paul on Breza (XVI century), st. Coastal, 2
(near the bridge of Alexander Nevsky). Halfway from Pskov to the
Taken Mountain, on the banks of the Great, there are the remains of
the Seretkin Monastery, known at least since the 16th century. The
pillarless Peter and Paul Church with an ancient quadrangle of the
16th century and an annex of the 17th century adjoining it with a
shed roof has come down to us with minimal alterations. On the annex
once stood a curious belfry with four spans facing all directions of
the world, converted in the 19th century into a bell tower with a
spire. On the south and west sides, the belfry is decorated with
crosses made of stove tiles. Directly under the belfry is a stone
tent that served as a cell for the 17th century Polish archbishop
Arseniy, where the window openings of the 17th century have been
preserved intact. From the rest of the buildings of the monastery,
which stood on the very bank of the river, there were only cellars
with vaults that had failed in places.
Church of St. John the
Theologian on Misharina Gora (1547), st. Alleynaya, 1. The church is
located near the confluence of the Milevka (Milyavitsa) stream into
the Pskov River on the low Misharina Hill. The name of the hill
comes either from the name of the clerk Misyur, who became famous in
the 16th century for his charity, or from the numerous mshars -
swampy swampy places - surrounding the hill. The stone church on
Milyavitsa appeared in 1547 and at that time belonged to the
Kostelnikov Monastery, which was abolished in 1764. Since that time,
the church has become a parish. It was rebuilt many times, and,
apparently, only the walls of the quadrangle and three apses have
survived from the building of the 16th century, among which the
middle apse is especially remarkable, preserving the window framing
characteristic of the 16th century with roller divorces in the form
of a cross. The original vaults of the main part of the temple,
placed on four pillars, were replaced in the 17th–18th centuries by
a closed vault resting on the walls, at the same time the
eight-slope roof was replaced by a four-slope one, crowning it with
a small cupola. The six-span bell tower, erected over the porch of
the 17th century, belongs to the end of the 17th-beginning of the
18th century.
Church of Barbara the Great Martyr (1618), st.
Plekhanovsky Posad, 14 (not far from the Pokrovskaya Tower). The
church is the only monument of wooden architecture in Pskov and its
age is already approaching four centuries. Of course, she lost some
details, but her extremely simple composition of three cubic volumes
- the narthex, the main room and the altar part - is original. The
main volume is covered with a gable roof and topped with a small
cupola. Small windows and a doorway are decorated with simple
architraves. In the 19th century, a cubic bell tower stood on the
porch, but it was dismantled during the restoration of the 20th
century.
Church of Constantine and Helena (XVI century), st.
Krasnogorskaya, 26 (right bank of Pskov). The church is
picturesquely located on the banks of the Pskov River in the former
Tsar's Sloboda. The date of its construction is unknown, but the
features of the architecture allow it to be attributed to the 16th
century. According to the composition, this is a typical four-pillar
church with three apses and one cupola. The decor of the church is
traditional. The original eight-slope covering has not been
preserved, the southern aisle, the porch and the two-tiered bell
tower appeared in the 18th-19th centuries. At the end of the 20th
century, a fence with round turrets and a small two-span belfry,
stylized in antiquity, was made around the church.
Church of
Demetrius Myrrh-streaming (1534), st. Plekhanov Posad, 74 Nazimov
(1888), historian and local historian I. I. Vasilev (1901) and
collector and collector of antiquities F. M. Plyushkin (1911), whose
collection became the basis of the Pskov Museum. There is also a
mass grave of Soviet soldiers.
The current building replaced
an older monastery church, known since the 14th century. The
southern chapel appeared in 1783, and the three-tiered bell tower
was built in 1864. The basis of the church is a four-pillar cubic
volume with three apses, topped with a light drum and a late dome.
The decor of the facades, apses and drum is typical of Pskov
churches of the 16th century.
Church of Alexei from the Field
(1540), st. Sovetskaya, 100. The church is located behind the former
Great Gates in the former Alekseevskaya Sloboda. It was built in
1540 on the site of a burned-out or dismantled predecessor and was
located on the territory of the Aleksevsky Monastery. Located
outside the fortress walls, in the 16th-18th centuries, the church
repeatedly found itself in the thick of hostilities. At the end of
the 17th century, the monastery “burned down without a trace” and
after the restoration the church became a parish.
This is a
small, single-domed, pillarless church, consisting of a single-apse
quadrangle, a southern aisle, a vestibule, and a baroque two-tier
bell tower crowned with a spire. Only the walls of the quadrangle
have survived from the original construction, everything else,
including the ceilings of the premises, dates back to the 18th
century. The ancient decor of the church was extremely laconic: a
three-part articulation with shoulder blades on the northern facade
of the quadrangle, and a corbel of a runner in the upper part of the
apse, opened during the restoration of 1969. The later southern
aisle is decorated with a three-roller cornice, and its windows are
framed with platbands.
Church of St. Nicholas the
Wonderworker in Lyubyatovo (XVI century), st. Lyubyatovskaya, 2. The
church is located on the left bank of the Pskov River in the area of
modern buildings, about three kilometers from the eastern wall of
the Round City. In ancient times, the Lyubyatov Monastery was
located here, it is not known by whom and when it was founded.
Chronicles report that in 1570 Ivan the Terrible stayed in the
monastery. During the siege of Pskov by the troops of Stafan Batory,
in 1581, the monastery was used to house Polish soldiers. The Poles
were marked in history by the damage to the icon of Our Lady of
Lyubyatov from the beginning of the 15th century, now exhibited in
the Tretyakov Gallery.
The date of construction of the stone
church of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker is unknown, but according to
the peculiarities of architecture, it is attributed to the 16th
century. At that time it was a small four-pillar one-apse church
with a combination of gabled roofing and five domes, rare for Pskov.
Later, four small cupolas were dismantled and the main volume became
single-domed, and the roof was replaced with a four-pitched one. A
low bell tower with a hexagonal ringing tier and ending in the form
of a spire appeared at the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries. The
southern aisle was built at the end of the 17th century, but
completely redone at the beginning of the 20th century.
Botanical Garden. Immediately behind the southern wall of the Round
City, between Kuznetskaya, Sverdlov and Oktyabrsky Prospect streets,
there is the Botanical Garden, and in it is the Sokolsky bastion of
the early 18th century. The garden was opened in 1878 by the works
of N.I. Raevsky, but after the Great Patriotic War, only a wasteland
remained from him. The current garden is the result of the city's
residents' efforts to restore it. Introducers such as Amur velvet,
Manchurian walnut, Ussuri pear and Siberian fir grow in the park.
Museums
Pskov State United Historical,
Architectural and Art Museum-Reserve, Nekrasova Street, 7. ☎ +7 (8112)
66-33-11. Mon–Sun 11:00–18:00. In the central building of the museum -
Art and Industrial School. Van der Fleet of the beginning of the 20th
century - there are two expositions: "Art of Western Europe of the
16th-19th centuries" and "Russian art of the 18th-20th centuries".
Pogankin chambers, Nekrasov street, 7. ☎ +7 (8112) 66-33-11. Tue–Sun
11:00–18:00. The exposition of the museum is located in a 17th-century
building, where you can admire the arrangement of merchants' chambers of
that time, including vaulted ceilings, in-wall staircases and restored
tiled stoves on the upper floors. The museum is proud of its collection
of icons of the Pskov school of the 14th-17th centuries, which also
includes the icon "The Vision of the Elder Dorotheus" depicting ancient
Pskov during the siege of Stafan Batory. The collection "Russian
artistic silver", among other things, contains several exhibits from the
ancient Pskov treasures.
Order Chamber, Kremlin, 4. ☎ +7 (8112)
72-45-74. Wed–Sun 11:00–18:00. The only museum in the country that tells
about the system of government of the Russian state and shows the
restored interior of the premises used by officials at the end of the
17th century.
Vlasievskaya tower. ☎ (8112) 72-45-74. daily 11.00 -
18.00, except Monday and Tuesday. 50 rub. (2013).
Spaso-Preobrazhensky Cathedral of the Mirozhsky Monastery, Mirozhskaya
Embankment, 2. ☎ +7 (8112) 56-73-02. Tue–Sun 11:00–18:00, the Cathedral
is open for visits only in dry weather. In 2013 it was closed for
restoration.
Palaty Menshikov, st. Sovetskaya, 50. Tue–Sat
11:00–18:00. In the restored chambers of the 17th century, an exposition
called "Gallery of Naive Art" is presented, showing the best part of the
collection of works by naive artists from the funds of the Pskov
Museum-Reserve.
Pskov Smithy Yard, Komsomolsky lane, 7. ☎ +7 (8112)
66-33-11. Mon–Fri 10:00–17:00, by appointment by phone.
Depository of
the Pskov Museum-Reserve, Masson's House, Komsomolsky per., 6. ☎ +7
(8112) 66-33-11. Thu–Sat 11:00–17:00, guided tours by appointment by
phone. edit
Memorial Museum-Apartment of Yu.P. Spegalsky, Oktyabrsky
prospect, 14/1, apt. 74. Yu.P. Spegalsky is known not only for his work
on the measurement and restoration of the monuments of Pskov and St.
Petersburg, but also for a series of wonderful drawings "Pskov of the
17th century", created by him in besieged Leningrad.
Railway Museum,
Vokzalnaya street, 38. ☎ +7 (8112) 70-66-32. 🕑 Tue–Thursday
10:00–18:00, Tue–Fri 11:00–17:00, Sat 11:00–15:00.
Museum of the
Novel Two Captains, Oktyabrskaya Square, 7.
Theaters
Pskov
Academic Theatre. A.S. Pushkin, st. Pushkin, 13. ☎ (8112) 66-40-39,
72-74-02, 72-80-22 (cashier), 72-83-42.
Pskov Regional Puppet
Theatre, st. Konnaya 3 (on the banks of the Velikaya River, next to the
Olginsky Bridge). ☎ (8112) 56-33-13.
Cinemas
Cinema "October",
pl. Lenina, 3. ☎ 7 (811) 272-20-72. The cinema "October" has two halls:
"Aristocrat" and "Favorite". Closed for renovation since 2016.
Cinema
"Victory", Oktyabrsky prospect, 17. ☎ (8112) 75-77-07.
Cinema
"Change", Oktyabrsky prospect, 17a. ☎ (8112)73-97-33. Currently under
renovation (November 2013)
16 "Mirage Cinema", (TRK) Aquapolis, st.
Kuzbass Division, 19. ☎ 8 (800) 505-17-85. There are several halls in
the cinema, 2 of which are VIP categories.
Cheap
Cafe "Bulochkin", Grazhdanskaya st. 5 (on the
way to the station). 8:00–22:00. Inexpensive cafe with homemade pies and
a small selection of hot dishes heated in the microwave.
Cafe "Mill".
☎ +7-(8112)-72-05-91. Soups, pancakes: 50–70 rubles, hot dishes: 80–120
rubles (2013). Local fast food, created not without the influence of the
St. Petersburg "Tea Spoon", although the prices are lower here, and the
atmosphere is perhaps even better. There are only 6-7 types of pancakes,
but there are full-fledged hot dishes. Free WiFi.
st. Lenina, 1
(central square, opposite the Kremlin). around the clock.
Communal
st. 73 (TK Gulliver, the far edge of Zavelichye).
Oktyabrsky pr. 54
(Maximus shopping center, not far from the station).
Sergievskaya
dining room, Oktyabrsky prospekt. 19. ☎ +7 (8112) 73-71-24. 8:00–22:00.
An ordinary dining room with trays and distribution, but decorated as a
full-fledged cafe with obvious and maybe even excessive show off. The
letter i is a tribute to the pre-revolutionary name of Oktyabrsky
Prospekt, and not at all to Ukraine, as one might think.
Average
cost
Cafe "Old Fortress" (formerly "Arsenal"), corner of Oktyabrsky
pr. and st. Sverdlov. around the clock. Hot dishes: 200–300 rubles
(2013). A stylish establishment that is very reminiscent of Estonian
pubs in spirit: an unusual interior, a wide range of beer and a modest
selection of actual food. The cafe is located right in the fortress
wall, so the hall here is narrow and long. Each table has a telephone to
call the waiter. It’s worth going for the exotic, don’t expect culinary
discoveries.
Cafe-pizzeria "Kofein", st. M. Gorky, 29 (Zavelichiye).
☎ +7 (8112) 57-12-93. 10:00–23:00. Pizza: 200–300 rubles; coffee: from
60 rubles (2009). You won’t surprise anyone with a retro interior and a
collection of old things now, but in Caffeine everything is chosen so
well that you really don’t want to leave the cafe, and pizza
surprisingly goes well with coffee, the smell of which will meet you at
the very entrance. Contrary to Russian tradition, this is a real
pizzeria, that is, apart from pizza, there is no food here - not even
pasta: only drinks and desserts. Good feedback.
Restaurant Bierhoff,
Rizhsky pr. 16 (Zavelichie, shopping mall "Rizhsky"). ☎ +7 (8112)
57-40-00. Fri–Tue 12:00–1:00, Wed–Fri 12:00–3:00, Sat 13:00–3:00, Sun
13:00–1:00. A mug of beer: 80 rubles, hot dishes: 100–200 rubles (2009).
Beer restaurant with good beer of its own production and mostly meat hot
dishes. In the evenings very loud music, there may not be empty seats.
Expensive
Yard Podznoev, Nekrasov, 1b. ☎ +7(8112)79-70-00. about
1000 per person. Restaurant and cafe in a restored fortress with
delicious dishes. 4 chambers with different design and atmosphere (Wine,
Beer, Refectory, Pirogovaya and Coffee chambers), the Beer Chamber is
recommended for authentic Russian cuisine.
Tavern and bar "903", st.
Nabat, 2a (bar) and 2b (tavern). ☎ +7 (900) 9-903-903. rubles for
700-800 per person. Restaurant and bar with the same menu are located in
neighboring buildings. Good homemade beer.
Coffee houses
Cafe
Caramel, Oktyabrsky pr. 22. ☎ +7 (8112) 66-20-56. Mon–Thurs 8:00–23:00,
Fri 8:00–24:00, Sat 11:00–24:00, Sun 11:00–23:00. Hot dishes: 150–250
rubles, pancakes: 80–120 rubles (2013). A cozy coffee shop with a good
menu and an unexpectedly attentive attitude towards travelers: if you
arrive in Pskov by Moscow train, call ahead and the cafe will open
especially for you at 7:45. And maybe even get coffee for free: there is
a “suspended coffee” system, for which previous visitors pay. Free WiFi.
Coffee house "Chocolate", st. Fabricius, 2/17 (Victory Square). ☎ +7
(8112) 72-73-83. 11:00–23:00. Coffee: 60–100 rubles, hot dishes: 150–250
rubles (2013). Quite an average coffee house, but in Pskov this is
perhaps the first coffee house in general, and therefore it still enjoys
well-deserved popularity among local residents. You can eat pancakes,
salads, pastas and just a few types of hot dishes (mostly “juliennes in
a pan”). Free WiFi.
• Club Soda Riga prospect 16 22.00 - 06.00
• KSK
"Super" Oktyabrsky prospect 56
Cheap
1 Hotel Avatar, Sovetskaya st. 111, 3rd
floor (in the southern part of the city). ☎ +7 (8112) 66-26-86, +7
(8112) 66-94-54. Double room without amenities / with amenities:
1400/2300 rubles, single room without amenities: 900 rubles (2014). A
new hotel, occupying one floor in an unsightly residential building.
Nevertheless, everything inside is very decent, and there are cheap
rooms. Free WiFi.
2 Hotel "Krom", st. Metallistov, 5 (in the
south-eastern part of the city, 10 minutes walk from the station). ✉ ☎
+7 (8112) 73-90-07. Double room without amenities / with amenities: from
1260/2000 rubles, single room with amenities: from 1300 rubles (2013).
Hotel in the building of a former hostel, 20-25 minutes walk from Krom.
Corridors, some rooms and common bathroom fixtures have been
refurbished, but the cheap rooms leave much to be desired: old
furniture, creaky floors, doors and beds. A significant inconvenience is
created by hot water, which smells strongly of hydrogen sulfide,
although apparently harmless. For rooms without amenities on the floor
there is a free shower, but its sanitary condition also raises
questions. The most economical travelers can stay in triple or quadruple
rooms, from 550 rubles per person.
3 Hotel Olginskaya, Paromenskaya
st. 4 (Zavelichie). ☎ +7 (8112) 57-08-88, +7 (8112) 57-51-51. Double
without amenities / with amenities: 1700/2600 rubles, single: from 1000
rubles (2014). The hotel is located on the banks of the Velikaya River,
opposite Krom (5-10 min walk). A Soviet-era building with a Soviet level
of service and customer service. The rooms are in good condition.
Contradictory reviews of the hotel. But nevertheless, this is one of the
cheapest and well-located hotels in Pskov.
4 Hotel "Pilgrim",
Krestovskoe Highway 83 (next to the bypass). ☎ +7 (8112) 62-04-90, +7
(906) 222-77-99. Double room: 1400 rubles (2014). In terms of meaning,
this is a motel, and the cheapest of those that are located in Pskov
itself and are accessible by public transport. Amenities are shared by a
block of two rooms, there are expensive double rooms with private
facilities, there are also cheap triple and quadruple rooms. Free WiFi.
Visitors rather praise, although they note that it is cheap and cheerful
here.
5 Sport Hotel, st. Labor, 51 (Zapskovye). ☎ +7 (8112)
53-86-81. Double / triple room: 1640/2460 rubles (2014). Far from the
center and quite unsightly. All rooms are old, with amenities on the
block. Free WiFi.
6 Old City Hotel , Krestovskoe highway, 43. ☎ +7
(906) 222-87-15. around the clock. from 800 rubles A new cozy hotel in a
quiet area of the city, a five-minute drive from the center.
Average cost
7 Hotel "Kolos", st. Red Partizan, 2 (northern part of
the center). ☎ +7 (8112) 72-32-56. Double room: 2850–3000 rubles (2011).
The hotel is located in an unattractive area, but close to the main
Pskov sights (5 min walk to Krom). Looks great, good reviews. Free WiFi.
8 Hotel "Oktyabrskaya", Oktyabrsky pr. 36 (south-eastern part of the
center). ✉ ☎ +7 (8112) 66-42-46, +7 (8112) 66-42-54. Double room:
1800–2200 rubles, single room: 1300 rubles (2014). In the past, one of
the oldest and cheapest hotels in Pskov has now risen in price and got
rid of the most dead multi-bed rooms. Now it is clean here, every room
has a bathroom and not the most miserable environment, although there
are still a lot of bad reviews.
9 Rizhskaya Hotel, 25 Rizhsky Ave.
(travel from the station by buses No. 2 and 17.). ☎ +7 (8112) 56-22-23,
+7 (8112) 56-76-12, fax: +7-(8112)-56-23-01. Single room: 1600 rubles,
double room: 2900 rubles (2014). Large hotel in the western part of the
city (15-20 min walk to the center). Overhaul did not save her from such
a wonderful feature as those on duty on the floor, who take away the
keys from the guests and give out boiling water. The reviews are good,
but everyone agrees that the hotel is a little expensive: for example,
breakfast is paid separately, although Wi-Fi is finally free.
10 Tranzit Hotel, st. Dekabristov, 64. ✉ ☎ +7 (8112) 73-60-06, +7 (921)
215-63-73, Tranzitpsk. Double room: 1700–2500 rubles (2014). The center
is 20 minutes by bus, the bypass is 10 minutes on foot, so this is more
of a roadside motel than a hotel. The rooms are renovated, with
amenities, breakfast included in the price. Free secure parking. The
cheapest rooms are singles (half bed) with double occupancy, real
doubles are more expensive. Free WiFi.
11 Balt House Motel, 19
Leningradskoe Shosse (at the bypass road). ✉ ☎ +7 (8112) 66-67-92.
Double room: 2100-2300 rubles, in multi-bed rooms: from 700 rubles /
person (2014). Roadside motel, and not the cheapest. Free Wi-Fi, paid
guarded parking. Reviews are quite contradictory.
12 Mini-hotel
"Gnezdo", st. Vladimirskaya, 3v (Zavelichiye). ☎ +7 (8112) 77-79-00, +7
(8112) 57-81-78. Double room: 1800–2200 rubles, 20% more expensive in
summer (2014). Several apartments in a new residential building have
been turned into a hotel. The location is not the most convenient - the
center is 40 minutes on foot or with rare public transport, but the
hotel itself, apparently, is not bad. Free WiFi.
13 Mini-hotel
Karkushin Dom, st. Vorovskogo, 7 (in the center). ☎ +7 (8112) 79-09-09,
+7 (8112) 79-09-04. Single / double: 2700/3200 rubles. Quiet and cozy
place, relatively small rooms; has its own parking and restaurant,
Wi-Fi. Good feedback. Jul 2021
14 Chemodan Hotel, 56E Oktyabrsky Ave.
✉ ☎ +7 (8112) 616160. Double room: 2500 rubles, single room: 1600
rubles (2018). Good for the price rooms with air conditioning,
refrigerator and wi-fi. The hotel occupies the third floor of a
three-story building without an elevator. Despite the address
"Oktyabrsky Prospekt", in fact it is located on Vokzalnaya Street.
Before its intersection with Oktyabrsky Prospekt, 3 minutes on foot, to
the bus stop - 5 minutes, to the station - about 10 minutes.
15 Hotel Angelskaya , Pskov, per. Filled, 1/14. ☎ +7 (8112) 33-17-01,
+7 (911) 899-03-03. 🕑 around the clock. 2500 - 8000 rub. It is located
not far from the Mikhailovskaya Tower and from the favorite resting
place of the Pskovites - the Finnish Park. The Kremlin can be reached on
foot in 20 minutes. There is free guarded parking, free Wi-Fi throughout
the hotel. The hotel has a restaurant of Russian and European cuisine.
Expensive
16 Old Estate Hotel&Spa, st. Verkhne-Beregovaya, 4
(Zapskovye). ☎ +7 (8112) 79-45-45. Double room: from 5400 rubles (2014).
Elite 4-star hotel. Beautiful, comfortable, expensive. A swimming pool
and spa are available for guests. Free WiFi. Good feedback.
17 Guest
house "At Pokrovka", st. Voevody Shuisky, 17 (Velikaya Embankment
opposite the Mirozhsky Monastery). ✉ ☎ +7 (8112) 29-11-90, +7 (964)
676-00-00. Double rooms: 3600–4600 rubles (2014). The guest house offers
a "vintage vacation in Pskov" and is designed not for tourists, but for
large companies renting the whole house. There are 4 rooms with double
beds, a living room and two shared bathrooms. The price includes
breakfast; in addition, a cook prepares a variety of dishes on request.
18 Hotel "Dvor Podznoeva", st. Nekrasova, 1b (in the southern part of
the center). ☎ +7 (8112) 79-70-00, +7 (8112) 79-70-01. Double room: from
4500 rubles (2014). Modern business hotel in a quiet location, 10 min
walk from Crom. Courteous service, three-star comfort. Free secure
parking. Breakfast is included in the room rate - not the most varied,
but more or less complete. Free WiFi. Prepayment ("early booking")
allows you to get a small discount.
19 Favorit Hotel, st.
Children's, 1b (center). ✉ ☎ +7 (8112) 70-06-31, +7 (8112) 70-06-32, +7
(906) 220-70-00. Double room: 3000–3500 rubles (2014). A small hotel
located in the very center of the city, on the banks of the Great. All
rooms with private facilities, double beds everywhere. Breakfast is
included in the room rate. There is Wi-Fi and free parking. Good
feedback.
20 Mini-hotel "Edem", Rotnaya st. 44 (in the southern part
of the city). ☎ +7 (8112) 66-39-57. Double room: 3000–3500 rubles
(2014). The hotel is located near the railway station, but fairly far
from the center of Pskov. There are 11 rooms in total, mostly suites.
Everything is new and beautiful. Free WiFi. Good feedback.
21 Hotel
Zolotaya Embankment, Sovetskaya emb. 2 (Zapskovye). ✉ ☎ +7 (8112)
62-78-77. Double room: 2900–3200 rubles (2014). The location of this
hotel is close to ideal: in a quiet location right in front of Crom.
Modern rooms with Wi-Fi. Good feedback.
Access to the Internet
In the cafe Melnitsa on the
square. Lenin (round the clock), at the post office (Sovetskaya st., 20:
Mon-Fri 8.00-17.00, lunch 11.00-11.30 and 14.30-15.00).
The name of the city is associated with a hydronym -
the Pskova River. There are different versions of the origin of the name
of the city and the river. According to one of them - of Slavic origin -
the name Pleskov (Plskov) comes from the Old Russian word "ples" - part
of the river between two bends - or from the word "sand". The form of
Pskov, used in the Laurentian Chronicle and characteristic of the
northeastern tradition of chronicle writing, has been fixed as a
linguistic norm since the 15th century due to the hegemony of Moscow[9].
According to another version - of Baltic-Finnish origin - the name comes
from the word piskava (in Liv), piskva, pihkva (in Estonian), meaning
"resinous water" and reflects the polyethnicity of the early population
of the city. Other interpretations of the hydronym are “splash”,
“shine”, “fish river”, “sand”. Archaeologists have established that in
Pskov X-XI centuries. the ancestors of the Slavs lived - the Pskov
Krivichi, representatives of the Baltic-Finnish, Baltic and Scandinavian
tribes.
The term "skobari" is often associated with the
inhabitants of Pskov and the Pskov region. The most common is the
version according to which there was a gradual transition from the word
"Pskov" to the name "Skobar" by replacing individual sounds and parts of
the word, largely due to the specifics of the Pskov dialects
("Pskov-Pskopsky-Skopsky-Skobsky-Skobsky" and as a result could reverse
word formation occurs: “skobsky-staples-staples”). According to another
version, the city has been famous for its blacksmithing since ancient
times, and, according to legend, Tsar Peter I called the people of Pskov
"staples" after he could not unbend the bracket forged by local
blacksmiths (and he easily unbent ordinary horseshoes). It was here, in
Pskov, that the song "From Dawn to Dawn Forged Staples Staples" was
born.
The age of Pskov is not exactly
known. Archaeological research near the mouth of the Pskov in the
northern tip of the Krom (Kremlin) showed that this area was
inhabited 2000 years ago. The middle - third quarter of the 1st
millennium AD dates back to the site of the Pskov settlement of the
settlement of the "culture of long mounds", left by settlers from
the south. In the 7th-9th centuries, on the site of the Pskov
settlement, there was a settlement Pskov V, related to the bearers
of the Ryuge culture, which died in a fire in the early 860s.
According to the appearance of the material culture, Pskov V and
Izborsk are associated with the antiquities of the interfluve of the
Lower Vistula and Oder. The end of the 9th century - the
beginning of the 11th century dates back to the period of building
on the Pskov settlement, represented by wooden log buildings with
plank floors on logs and a stove in the corner. The area of the
settlement of Pskov G-I by the middle of the 10th century reached
12-15 hectares, and the population increased by 5-7 times. The finds
of this period testify to the appearance in the city of immigrant
settlers of Scandinavian origin[20]. The 8 chamber burials of the
Starovoznesensky necropolis found in the southern part of the Okolny
city date back to the second half of the 10th century. The governor,
who was buried in chamber burial No. 6 at the Podznoevsky XII
excavation site, was buried half-sitting in an “armchair” with
painted details until 967.
The official date of foundation of
Pskov is considered to be 903, the year of the first mention of the
city in the annals. In the older (Commission) list of the Novgorod
First Chronicle of the younger version, the story about Igor and
Olga says: “and again bring yourself a wife from Pleskov, named
Olga.” According to the Laurentian Chronicle (The Tale of Bygone
Years) - In years ҂s҃. uh. аı҃. [903] Igor will grow up. and
hozhashe on Ѡlzѣ and sloushash єg̑. and brought єmu zhenou ѿ Pskov.
named valenu (In the year 6411 (903), when Igor grew up, he
accompanied Oleg and listened to him, and they brought him a wife
from Pskov, named Elena). The pagan at that time Olga is named in
the Laurentian Chronicle by the name given at baptism in 957.
According to legend, when Princess Olga was standing on the bank of
the Great, she had a vision: three rays emanating from the sky
converged on the opposite bank. At this place, the princess ordered
the construction of a cathedral in honor of the Holy Trinity, and
around “the city is great, glorious and in all abundance!”.
Until the 12th century, Pskov was part of Kievan
Rus. After the proclamation of the Novgorod feudal republic in 1136,
the city came under the rule of Novgorod. Novgorod and Pskov had
common military interests. Several times Novgorodians and Pskovians
had to defend themselves against military campaigns of the
Principality of Polotsk and from attacks from neighboring Baltic
tribes. In 1240 Pskov was surrounded by troops of the Teutonic
Order. When the Germans were about to lift the siege and retreat,
the boyar Tverdilo secretly opened the gates of the city at night,
hoping to seize power in Pskov with the help of the German feudal
lords. For a year and a half, Pskov was occupied by the order. Only
in 1242 the city was liberated by the army of Alexander Nevsky.
The constant danger that threatened Pskov from the west made it
necessary to strengthen and develop the fortress. The territory of
the Kremlin was significantly expanded during the reign of Prince
Dovmont. It is possible that at this time the wooden walls began to
be replaced with stone ones. By his order, a stone wall was built,
passing from the coast of Pskov to the coast of the Great.
In the 12th-13th centuries, the main trading partners of Pskov were
the cities of Narva, Yuryev (now Tartu), Riga, Polotsk, Smolensk, and,
to a lesser extent, Novgorod. The Pskov lands provided the city with
bread and other products, so Pskov was not economically dependent on
Novgorod. They were connected only by common military interests.
However, after the Battle of the Ice, their common enemy, the Teutonic
Order, no longer posed a danger to Novgorod. Novgorodians had to fight
only with the Swedes, and Pskov alone repelled the onset of the Livonian
Order. Thus, the military ties between Pskov and Novgorod were
destroyed. By this time, Pskov had its own boyars, quite numerous and
strong, striving to take all power in Pskov land into their own hands.
In fact, Pskov became independent at the end of the 13th century, under
Prince Dovmont.
In 1348, the Bolotovsky Treaty was signed,
according to which the Novgorod Republic recognized the independence of
the Pskov Republic from the Novgorod posadniks, and the governor of the
lord began to get out of the Pskovians. In 1397, the people's veche (the
highest legislative body of the Pskov Republic) adopted the first
edition of the Pskov Judicial Charter - a code of laws.
By the
end of the 15th century, the population of Pskov was more than 30
thousand people. Most of the urban population were artisans and
merchants. The craft in Pskov was less developed than in Novgorod, but
even here there were many skilled craftsmen: blacksmiths, masons,
tanners, potters, and jewelers. Merchants were the main owners of Pskov
trade. The Pskov merchants traded with the cities of the Baltic and
Lithuania, as well as with Russian cities. In the 15th century, trade
relations between Pskov and Moscow were strengthened. Pskovians sold
flax, leather, fish, honey, wax, furs, and bought salt, cloth, iron,
metal products and other goods. The development of trade in the Pskov
land led to the creation of its own monetary system. Since 1425, the
Pskovites began to mint their coins from high-grade silver and minted it
until 1510.
From 1461, power in Pskov was concentrated in the hands of the Moscow
governors. Their powers have grown every year. From 1467, they received
the right to send their rulers to all Pskov suburbs, and their judicial
powers expanded. In 1480, Pskov withstood a siege by the Livonians, led
by Bernhard von der Borch. In 1483, in violation of the legislative
rights of the veche, Prince Yaroslav Obolensky changed a number of Pskov
laws, which provoked a long-term uprising of the Pskovites. By the end
of the 15th - beginning of the 16th century, Pskov had almost completely
lost its independence. In 1502, Pskov successfully repulsed the siege of
the city by the Livonian master Walter von Plettenberg. In 1509, Prince
Ivan Mikhailovich Repnya-Obolensky was appointed governor of Pskov, he
did not recognize the Pskov laws, did not take the oath to the veche. He
himself established and collected taxes from the population, judged the
people of Pskov without the participation of representatives of the
veche. Ambassadors were sent to Vasily III with complaints about the new
governor. The Grand Duke invited all the dissatisfied to go with their
petitions (complaints) to Novgorod. On January 6, 1510, Pskov posadniks
and boyars were invited to the Faceted Chamber of the Novgorod Kremlin.
Vasily III demanded the destruction of the Pskov veche and the post of
posadniks and the extension of the Moscow system of government to the
Pskov land. This meant the complete elimination of the Pskov feudal
republic and the annexation of the Pskov land to Moscow. The posadniks
and boyars gathered in the Novgorod Chamber of Facets were forced to
accept the demand of the Moscow sovereign.
On the morning of
January 13, 1510 (7019 from the creation of the world), the Pskov Veche
was convened for the last time. On behalf of the veche, the posadnik
conveyed to the ambassador of Vasily III Tretiak Dalmatov the consent of
the Pskovites to submit to Moscow. The veche bell was immediately
removed, it was announced the liquidation of the Pskov feudal republic
and the entry of its territory into the Russian state.
After
joining Moscow Rus, Pskov continued to be a major trade and craft center
of the Russian state. A variety of crafts were developed in Pskov:
metalworking, woodworking, processing of plant and animal raw materials,
pottery and construction crafts. In the middle of the 16th century in
Pskov, there were 1,700 retail premises in 40 trading rows. Twice a
year, in January and May, large fairs were held in Pskov. At the winter
fair, in addition to other goods, large quantities of timber and dry
smelts were sold, at the spring fair - hemp, lard, yuft. Pskov was an
important transit point, through it flax, canvas, leather and cloth were
exported abroad, and metals and industrial products were imported.
In 1565, when Tsar Ivan the Terrible divided the Russian state into
oprichnina and zemshchina, the city became part of the latter.
Until 1581, the fighting of the Livonian War bypassed Pskov. After Ivan
the Terrible refused to sign the peace treaty proposed by Stefan Batory,
according to which Livonia and western Russia with the cities of
Novgorod, Pskov and Smolensk departed the Commonwealth, the Polish king
decided to take Pskov. Thus, he hoped to force the government of Ivan IV
to agree to difficult peace conditions. On August 26, the troops of
Stefan Batory approached Pskov and settled south of the city. Suburban
monasteries were occupied by separate detachments. As always, before the
arrival of the enemy, the Pskovites burned the settlement. The
population of the settlement and the peasants of the surrounding
villages took refuge behind the fortress walls of Pskov. Expecting an
assault from the south, the Pskovites built another wooden wall along
the southern wall of the Round City, parallel to the stone one. Between
these walls they dug a ditch. The siege of Pskov lasted six months. But
neither the general assault on September 8, nor another 30 attacks, nor
digging under the fortress walls, nor a six-month siege broke the city's
defenders. As a result, Bathory lifted the siege and agreed to peace
negotiations.
In 1615 Pskov was besieged by the Swedes. The
troops of Gustav Adolf approached the fortress from the north. Despite
the powerful shelling of the city, the Pskovites repulsed the fierce
assault of the Swedes.
From the 16th century, social
contradictions began to grow in Pskov between peasants and feudal lords,
townspeople and feudal lords. Escalation of social conflicts was also
facilitated by the growth of state taxes. In the period from 1606 to
1611, uprisings broke out in Pskov. In 1650, a new major uprising broke
out in Pskov. The reason for it was the obligation of Russia, following
the results of the Russo-Swedish war of 1614-1617, to sell Sweden 12
thousand quarters of bread at the prices of the Pskov grain market. The
sale of a large batch of grain led to a doubling of the price of bread
and was the immediate cause for the outbreak of the uprising.
During the XV-XVI centuries, the fortress of Pskov continued to be
strengthened. The wooden walls of the Roundabout City were replaced with
stone ones. The wall of Krom was completed up to the mouth of Pskov. In
Pskov, in two places - at Gremyachaya Gora and at Krom, water-bearing
gates were built, which were wooden iron-covered gratings that closed
the entrance to the river in wartime.
The last time Pskov played an important role in the military history
of pre-revolutionary Russia was at the beginning of the 18th century
during the Great Northern War. In the winter of 1700-1701, the Russian
regiments defeated near Narva were withdrawn to Pskov. Later, the newly
formed troops were also sent there. For a while, Pskov became the center
of the active Russian army. After the defeat at Narva, Pskov began to be
in danger, because one could expect the Swedes to move east towards
Moscow through Pskov. By order of Peter I, defensive structures were
built in the Pskov fortress according to the latest military art of that
time: earthen bastions and semi-bastions connected by ramparts.
Surrounded by powerful new fortifications, equipped with the latest
artillery for those years, Pskov became a formidable fortress capable of
repelling the enemy. However, the fighting never started. The Swedish
king sent his troops to the west against Poland and Saxony. The troops
stationed in Pskov themselves went on the offensive.
After the
Northern War, Pskov ceased to be an important large trade and defensive
center of the country. As a result of the war, the borders moved far to
the west, and the need for a powerful fortress on Velikaya disappeared.
Having received access to the Baltic Sea, Peter I laid St. Petersburg in
the Neva delta, and Russia also received the large coastal cities of
Riga and Revel, where all foreign trade has shifted. Pskov became a
provincial city. According to information collected in 1780 for the
passage of Catherine II, there were 50 stone and 1614 wooden houses, 12
stone and up to a hundred wooden shops, grain and salt warehouses.
Factories were absent; the turnover of trade in timber, flax, hemp and
fish amounted to more than 300 thousand rubles, and shop trade - up to
200 thousand rubles.
With the beginning of the Patriotic War of
1812, the Russian generals considered the option of Napoleon's army
attacking St. Petersburg. In this case, the Pskov province would fall
into the sphere of hostilities, in connection with which a number of
preparatory measures were carried out here: a reserve for the guards
regiments was formed, hospitals and warehouses were created. However, a
number of military successes of the Russian army prevented the French
invasion of Pskov.
During the 19th century, the role of Pskov as
a city-monument grew. During the 19th century, Pskov grew significantly,
and there were more stone buildings. At the beginning of the century, it
was mostly one-story, after 100 years it was already more than half two-
and three-story. Numerous - over 50 - churches, chapels and monasteries,
medieval civil stone buildings, ancient dilapidated fortress walls gave
originality to the external appearance. In the 19th century, health care
and education were more developed in Pskov. Since 1838, the newspaper
"Pskov Gubernskie Vedomosti" began to appear. The construction of the
railroad in 1859 helped boost the economy and expand trade. By 1881,
water supply was opened in the city. Pskov of the 19th century was a
small, quiet, green town, where life flowed measuredly and calmly,
livening up during the days of fairs, bazaars, folk festivals, church
processions, secular and religious holidays.
From March to June
1900 V. I. Ulyanov (Lenin) lived in Pskov. Until the January events of
1905, there were almost no strikes, demonstrations or major
anti-government demonstrations in the agrarian Pskov province with an
underdeveloped industry, with a small working class. The main
revolutionary force in Pskov was the railway workers, who organized a
number of strikes.
In 1904, the first power plant was built in
the city, and in 1912, tram traffic was opened. In the summer of 1914,
war broke into the measured working life of the Pskov province. In 1915,
the front line was only 250-300 km from Pskov. Martial law was
introduced in the city. Front-line reserve formations, hospitals and
rear military services were located in Pskov. The city received tens of
thousands of wounded, prisoners of war and refugees. By the end of 1917,
the food problem became very acute, the city was sorely lacking bread.
On March 2, 1917, in the carriage of the royal train at the Pskov
station, Emperor Nicholas II abdicated the throne.
Revolution and civil war
On October 26 (November 8), 1917, the
Pskov Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies announced the
establishment of Soviet power in Pskov. From October 28 (November 10) to
November 1 (14), 1917, fierce battles were fought in the city between
the Bolsheviks and the forces supporting the Provisional Government,
after which the Soviet power in Pskov was finally established.
From February 25 to November 25, 1918, Pskov was occupied by German
troops. From May 25 to August 26, 1919, Pskov was captured again - now
by Estonian national units and detachments of S. N. Bulak-Balakhovich.
On June 22, 1941, the people of Pskov,
like the whole country, were shocked by the news of the outbreak of war
with Germany. But in the early days, people did not receive reliable
information, so they believed that the enemy would be stopped and
defeated at the western border. However, in the very first days,
refugees from Belarus and the Baltic states arrived in Pskov, then the
real state of affairs at the front at the beginning of the war became
clear. From July 2, Pskov began to be bombed. On the very first day of
the bombing, evacuation began: first of all, money, archives, industrial
equipment were taken out of the city, and with the approach of the
front, the evacuation of the civilian population began. On the night of
July 7-8, the Germans managed to break through the resistance of the
Soviet tank divisions and break through to the outskirts of Pskov in the
Krestov area. The blown-up bridges across the Velikaya River delayed the
occupiers for almost a day. July 9 Pskov was captured.
A harsh
occupation regime was established in the city. The townspeople were now
obliged to live according to German laws. Compulsory labor service was
introduced for all persons from 18 to 45 years old, which was later
extended to those who turned 15, and extended to 65 years for men and up
to 45 years for women. The working day lasted 14-16 hours. Many of those
who remained in the occupied territory worked at the power station, at
the railway, at the peat extraction and at the tannery, being punished
with rods for the slightest offense. In the initial period of the
occupation, the German administration sought to preserve the collective
organization of labor, which made it possible to centrally receive
agricultural products. But, she met stubborn resistance in the form of
sabotage, absenteeism, damage to cars. The economic robbery was
accompanied by the implementation of the general plan "Ost", according
to which part of the civilian population was subjected to destruction. A
concentration camp was set up in Kresty, where 65,000 people were
tortured to death.
Already in the first months of the occupation,
small partisan detachments were organized. In 1942, there was an active
formation of the partisan movement, scattered small partisan detachments
were united. The partisans made a great contribution to the common
Victory: they destroyed a significant number of enemy manpower and
equipment, turned the occupied territory into a zone of constant danger;
instilled uncertainty and fear in German soldiers and officers.
After the liberation of Ostrov on July 21, 1944, it became possible to
encircle the Wehrmacht group in the Pskov region. A panicked retreat of
the German troops began, which created favorable conditions for the
offensive of the troops of the 42nd Army of the 3rd Baltic Front. The
main blow to Pskov was delivered by the 128th and 376th rifle divisions
with attached formations and units. On July 22, the 376th division began
advancing towards Pskov, bypassing the Vauliny Gory (near the village of
Vaulino), and in the area of the village of Piskovichi reached the
Velikaya River. On July 23, Pskov was liberated: already in the morning,
the 376th division crossed the river in the area of the Pskov Kremlin
and liberated the western part of the city, and the 128th division
liberated its center and eastern part - from the Kremlin to Cheryokha.
The crossing of the Velikaya River created the conditions for the
liberation of Zavelichie and further advancement along the Pskov-Riga
highway.
During the Nazi occupation in Pskov, all industrial
enterprises were destroyed, most of the civil buildings were destroyed,
all tram lines were lost, and Pskov museums were looted.
In the first year after the liberation, Pskov
was restored by forces mainly only by enthusiasts, since no money was
allocated due to the ongoing war. In 1945, Pskov was included in the
list of 15 ancient cities subject to priority restoration, which
increased state funding for the restoration of enterprises, housing
stock, historical and cultural monuments. Pskov quickly rose from the
ruins. By 1950, the main stage of restoration work was completed. New
businesses, houses and schools were built. Since the late 1950s, Pskov
began to develop as a major industrial center. A number of high-tech
industries were established in the city. The products of the Pskov
factories were supplied abroad.
On September 26, 1958, the first
birch bark was found in Pskov, dated by the linguist A. Zaliznyak to
1180-1200.
Modern period
With the collapse of the USSR, a
large number of factories were closed, the city's economy fell into
decay. At the same time, at the turn of the 20th and 21st centuries,
Pskov temples and churches began to revive, many of which were closed
during the years of Soviet power.
By plane
Air communication with Pskov fully reflects the
problems of regional aviation in the European part of Russia. Five
or six different airlines tried to launch regular flights to Moscow:
none of them lasted more than a year. The local company Pskovavia
has made more progress, however, it also lost its flight certificate
in 2018. Instead, flights to Moscow and - since 2019 - to Sochi are
operated by the Rostov airline Azimut on Superjet 100 aircraft.
Airport (IATA:PKV) , st. Herman, 34. Located within the city, on
the southeastern outskirts. From the center, any transport is
suitable, following along Oktyabrsky Prospekt and Krestovsky Highway
to the Aeroport stop. Further 5 minutes on foot, and you are at the
goal. On the building from the side of the airfield there is an
inscription "City of Military Glory": the presence of military
aviation affects, which mainly uses the airfield.
By train
Pskov is a junction station, but there are few trains here: a daily
night train from Moscow (13 hours on the way, branded, tickets are
very expensive). A couple of times a week, a strange mail and
luggage train runs through Velikiye Luki, then arriving in Moscow at
the Rizhsky railway station. From St. Petersburg you can take the
high-speed train "Lastochka" (3 pairs a day, travel time 3.5 hours),
which follows from Luga on diesel traction, as well as the daily
evening train St. Petersburg-Luga-Pskov with a 12-minute transfer in
Luga by diesel train (about 4 hours on the way, which is even faster
than minibuses) and by a sit-down weekend train (on Friday evening
to Pskov, on Sunday evening back).
Suburban communication has
been preserved in the directions to Porkhov-Dno and Luga, twice a
day.
Railway station , Vokzalnaya st. 23. It is located 2.5
km southeast of the center of Pskov: almost all city transport comes
here, although nothing prevents walking along Oktyabrsky Prospekt or
Jan Fabricius Street. Pskov railway station is one of the oldest in
Russia. It was built in 1863 and has hardly changed since then. It
was in Pskov, at this very station on March 2, 1917, that Emperor
Nicholas II signed the abdication of the throne, which is reminded
by a memorial plaque and even a special chapel on the station
square. Inside there is a small waiting room and long-distance
ticket offices. Tickets for suburban trains are sold in the booth to
the left of the building. You can buy them on the train from the
conductor, but with a small extra charge. Except for the moments of
arrival or departure of the Moscow train, the station is empty.
By bus
Buses to St. Petersburg leave every hour, mostly
passing. On the way 4-5 hours. Numerous private carriers operate on
the same route - for example, Avtograf: in St. Petersburg they
depart from the Chernyshevsky monument ( 2 (Moscow-Petrogradskaya)
line Pobedy Park, opposite the Rossiya Hotel; Chernyshevsky Square,
11) and from the Pulkovskaya Park Inn Hotel ( 2
(Moskovsko-Petrogradskaya) Moskovskaya Line; Pobedy Square, 1),
travel time 4 hours. Please note that minibuses require prior
booking.
Daily night bus to Moscow (15 hours), 2 buses a day
to Novgorod (4 hours), quite a lot of buses in a southerly direction
- to Nevel (5 hours), Velikiye Luki (6 hours) and even to Belarusian
Vitebsk (6 hours). 8 hours). If you are going to the Baltics, then
two daily buses to Estonia are at your service - one to Tallinn (7
hours), the other to Narva (7 hours), both through Tartu - one or
two buses to Riga (6 hours) and not very regular flight to Aluksne.
Buses St. Petersburg-Riga, with the exception of the Ecolines night
bus, do not pass through Pskov.
Bus station Wikidata item,
Vokzalnaya st. 21. ☎ +7 (8112) 75-21-10. A small building with
ticket offices and a waiting room 100 m south of the railway
station.
By car
Federal highways passing through Pskov:
Highway A212 E77 Connects Pskov with Latvia.
Highway P60 Connects
Pskov with Estonia through the highway M11 E20 "Narva" (turn in
Kingisepp) and Gdov.
Highway M20 E95 St. Petersburg - Odessa.
Connects Pskov with St. Petersburg, Gatchina, Luga, Ostrov, Opochka,
Pustoshka, Nevel, Vitebsk, Orsha, Mogilev, Gomel, Chernigov, Kiev,
Uman and Odessa.
Pskov is connected with Moscow via the M9 E22
"Baltija" highway (Novorizhskoye Highway), which crosses the M20 E95
highway near the town of Pustoshka.
On the ship
There is
no passenger navigation along the Great.
The only type of public transport in Pskov is the
bus. Thanks to a large fleet of cars, buses run at short intervals,
which makes it easy to move around the city. One of the final stops of
all city routes is the railway station, next to which the bus station is
located. The fare is 25 rubles (2019). There is a rather crooked, but
working route planner.
Most of the objects of interest to the
traveler are concentrated in the city center and it is convenient to
move between them on foot. You can get to Snyatnaya Gora by bus number
1, the route of which starts from the railway station and passes through
the city center, in particular, through Sovetskaya Square (stop right in
front of the Kremlin).
At least the Yandex.Taxi application works in the city.
Estonia Estonia (Pskov office of the
General Consulate of Estonia), Narodnaya street, 25, ☎ +7 8112
725-380, fax: +7 (8112) 725-381, e-mail:
Consulate.Pskov@mfa.ee.
Latvia Latvia, Narodnaya street, 25, ☎ +7 8112 720-237, +7 8112
741-052, fax: +7 (8112) 724-056, e-mail:
consulate.pskov@mfa.gov.lv. Mon-Fri, 9-30AM - 4PM.
Netherlands Netherlands (Representation at
the Consulate of Estonia), Narodnaya street, 25, ☎ +7 8112 725-380,
fax: +7 (8112) 725-381, e-mail:
Consulate.Pskov@mfa.ee.
Visa
Centers
France Slovenia France and Slovenia (French and Slovenian
visa service provided by the Consulate of Latvia), Narodnaya street,
25, ☎ +7 8112 720-237, +7 8112 741-052, fax: +7 (8112) 724-056,
e-mail: consulate.pskov@mfa.gov.lv. Mon-Fri, 9-30AM - 4PM.