Severodvinsk (until September 12, 1957 - Molotovsk) is a city in the Arkhangelsk Region of Russia, the administrative center of the Severodvinsk municipality. Founded in 1936 as a working shipbuilding village, received city status in 1938. In 2016 he received the status of the City of Labor Valor and Fame.
In Severodvinsk, the territory of the shipbuilding enterprise OAO
Sevmash includes the territory of the former Nikolo-Korelsky
monastery, found in 1419. The St. Nicholas Korelsky Monastery was
first mentioned in Russian chronicles in 1419, when this monastery
was burned and ravaged by the Norse, the vikings. In 1420 the
monastery was again mentioned in the Russian chronicles, when the
monastery suffered from a fire.
In 1471 the monastery was
mentioned again in the history of Russia. While hunting for the
beast in the White Sea, two sons of Marfa Boretskaya, better known
as Marfa Posadnitsa, sank, they were buried in the Nikolo-Korelsky
monastery. Subsequently, Martha ordered to rebuild the monastery
with the church of St. Nicholas, and also gave him a part of her
possessions — agricultural fields, salt-works and fisheries.
The domes of the Saint Nicholas cathedral were lost in 1933 due to a
fire allegedly caused by lightning. The drums of the cathedral were
destroyed in 1936. In 2009, 5 domes and crosses were restored at the
Nikolsky Cathedral of the former Nikolo-Korelsky Monastery, located
on the territory of the shipbuilding enterprise OAO Sevmash. Steel
domes were made in workshop 7a and in workshop 40, crosses were made
in workshop 42 of SEVMASH OJSC. Restoration was carried out at the
expense of parishioners.
Pre-20th century
Vikings explored the territories around the
North Dvina River - part of Bjarmaland - at the start of the first
millennium. British and Norman ships came to these places for
mining, fur and fishing before the 13th century, but later the
climate became colder and access to the northern seas became closed.
The historical records first mention the settlement on the site
of modern Severodvinsk in 1419, when the Swedes sailed into the bay
and burnt down the Nikolo-Korelsky Monastery that stood by the shore
during the Swedish–Novgorodian Wars. Tradition states that Saint
Euphemius, an Orthodox missionary in Karelia, founded this
monastery. The abbey stood in ruins until 1471, when two sons of
Marfa Boretskaya died in a vicious storm; their bodies were
recovered on the beach near the monastery twelve days later. At the
urging of Boretskaya, the monastery was restored and her sons were
buried there.
On August 24, 1553, a ship of Richard
Chancellor reached the salt-mining settlement of Nyonoksa, which is
still famous for its traditional wooden architecture. The British
sailors visited the Nikolo-Korelsky Monastery, where they were
surprised to find a community of "sailors in soutanes (cassocks)"
and a pier large enough to accommodate several ships. The main
church of this extraordinary establishment was dedicated to Saint
Nicholas, the holy patron of sailors; hence, the whole White Sea
became known in 16th-century English maps as "St. Nicholas Bay". In
late 1613, during the Time of Troubles in Russia, Polish-Lithuanian
vagabonds, the Lisowczycy, captured and looted Severodvinsk with the
monastery.
The Nikolo-Korelsky Monastery flourished after the
establishment of the Muscovy Company, as the bulk of their trade
passed through the local harbor. In August 1618 the harbour was
visited by John Tradescant the elder, who conducted a survey of an
island situated opposite the monastery. This island became known to
the British as "Rose Island", because it was there that Tradescant
found an exceedingly rare plant which he named "Rosa moscovita" and
brought back to London.
Severodvinsk is the terminal station of a railway line which
splits of at Isakogorka station from the line connecting Moscow and
Arkhangelsk.
The Kudemskaya narrow-gauge railway in 2010 has
appeared in Forbes ranking, of 10 most beautiful railway routes of
the world.