Sudislavl is an urban-type settlement in the Kostroma region, the
first point when moving from Kostroma to the north and east and the
place where Central Russia begins to give way to the North. It is
notable for its church with a hipped bell tower on a hill and a dozen
pedigreed mansions in the classicist style.
The very ancient
Russian name Sudislavl was first mentioned in chronicles in 1360, and a
little later a wooden fortress appeared on the hill now called Cathedral
Mountain. The Time of Troubles did not affect it, and after it it
completely lost all military significance. In 1719, Sudislavl became a
county town; in the middle of the century, a cathedral was built on the
mountain, but several decades later Sudislavl lost its county status,
while retaining the title of a city.
The heyday of Sudislavl came
at the beginning of the 19th century, when in the city, which was not
even a county town, the construction of mansions began based on designs
for provincial centers (an amazing case!). This flourishing is
associated with the Old Believer community, among which the
semi-legendary personality of the merchant Nikolai Papulin especially
stands out, and the Old Believer merchants earned their initial capital,
allegedly from collecting mushrooms. By the middle of the century,
Papulin was arrested and sent into exile, persecution of other Old
Believers also intensified, after which the city’s heyday ended and it
stopped growing. In 1925, Sudislavl was completely demoted to a village,
but later it nevertheless became a regional center, grew to the size of
a small town and is now officially an urban-type settlement.
There are two main streets in Sudislavl, on which almost everything is
located - Komsomolskaya and Sovetskaya, perpendicular to it.
Komsomolskaya starts from the central square in the city with shopping
arcades and Lenin, and above the same square rises Cathedral Hill (as it
should be, with a cathedral and a tented bell tower at the same time).
Another mountain to the south of Komsomolskaya Street is occupied by a
park, and in general the area in the vicinity of Sudislavl is hilly,
with picturesque views.
Spaso-Preobrazhensky Cathedral (1758)
The cathedral was built at
the expense of parishioners to replace the wooden church that stood on
the same site with the same dedication.
Built in the middle of
the 18th century, the cathedral is, although somewhat archaic, but
typical for the Volga regions, a type of temple with a quadrangle,
crowned with a non-lighted five-domed dome and a high hipped bell tower.
In Sudislavl, the bell tower is not connected to the temple building (in
similar churches, the bell tower could crown the refectory). The archaic
taste of the local merchants is manifested in the constructive solution
- a quadrangle with a non-lighted five-domed dome and a hipped bell
tower are characteristic of the architecture of the 17th century.
However, the stylistic features of the 18th century are manifested in
the external decor - the walls of the bell tower are decorated with
pilasters. The refectory, rebuilt in the mid-19th century, has a more
classic decor - the spaces between the windows are divided by pilasters,
there is an entablature and a triangular pediment.
It is known
that in 1837, the master of the Kineshma artel, Turtukhaev, painted a
number of new icons for the iconostasis and renewed the old ones, and in
1840 he also made and gilded the iconostases of the chapels.
Assumption Cathedral (1790) - ruined
Built at the expense of St.
Petersburg and Sudislav merchants Andrei Nikolaevich Moskvin and Pyotr
Fedorovich Kokorev.
The temple is organized according to the
traditional “ship” plan - a bell tower above the refectory in the west,
a quadrangle and an apse in the east. The decor reflects the
architectural fashion of the late 18th century - the quadrangle is
decorated with an imitation portico, a full entablature and a pediment
on all sides. The second tier of the quadrangle is trimmed with
pilasters. Sandriks above the windows have a triangular and beam shape.
In the interior, fluted pilasters are superimposed on cross-shaped
pillars. In general, the external appearance of the Cathedral before its
destruction resembled the Vladimir Cathedral in St. Petersburg.
It is not known exactly when exactly after 1917 the five domes and bell
tower of the Cathedral were destroyed. Currently the building is in
ruins.
House of N.A. Papulina (early 19th century)
The
merchant's house has a standard classic structure - vent windows and
rustication on the lower level, windows with rectangular and arched
completion on the main floor, highlighting the center of the facade with
a pediment and four columns.
At the beginning of the 19th
century, this scheme spread to the Volga provinces as a result of the
work of the St. Petersburg architect Karl Rossi in Tver and Rybinsk. The
architect developed projects for residential and commercial buildings,
which eventually became exemplary. The use of techniques from these
projects - highlighting the center (using columns and arched windows),
lowering the corners, a three-tier system - is noticeable in the
appearance of N. A. Papulin’s house.
Nowadays the house houses a
children's music school.
Tretyakov Estate (1840s - 1860s)
In
1845, Pyotr Tretyakov bought out his family from the landowner Elagin,
moved to Sudislavl and bought a tannery. At the same time, he acquires a
plot of land in the city and builds an L-shaped house.
In the
1860s, the business and the house passed to Ivan Petrovich Tretyakov -
he completed the house in the eclectic style characteristic of that
time.
This is the main square volume, cut off at an angle facing
the intersection of streets. Two descending wings extend from it. The
house is not just built into the street, but forms the red line of the
intersection.
The decor of the facade is made in three tiers,
atectonic (usually rust is used only in the lower level of the decor,
but here it permeates two levels). There are both classicist
(semicircular windows, rustication, entablatures) and archaic features
(flies and crackers under the roof). In general, the composition of the
facade from the corner appears dynamic and centripetal, while from the
street sides the facades look asymmetrical.
The design of the
main entrance is especially interesting - on the steps there is a
sculptural group with sleeping lions. This is a decorative element very
often found in palaces and mansions of the second half of the 19th
century. One of the most famous examples is the “Lion Staircase” in the
Vorontsov Palace in Alupka.
Also, a later metropolitan analogue
of the Tretyakov house in Sudislavl can be called the Rekk mansion,
which has an asymmetrical plan, eclectic decor, combining several
European styles. On both sides of the facade decorated with porticoes
there are sculptures of a sleeping and awakening lion.
In the
Tretyakov house in Sudislavl, elements of interior decor have been
preserved, in particular, fireplaces with tiles from the early 20th
century.
Nowadays the house houses the city hospital.
The
city has the Sudislavsky Museum of Local Lore (a branch of the Kostroma
Historical and Architectural Museum-Reserve).
By bus: from Kostroma, in addition to the direct Kostroma-Sudislavl,
many buses in the eastern and north-eastern directions are also suitable
(Galich, Soligalich, Ostrovskoye, Neya, Manturovo, etc.), but you should
check in advance whether they stop in Sudislavl ( for example, as of
2020, all buses to Sharya and Bogovarovo pass through it without
stopping). The journey takes about an hour, departures from Kostroma are
also at least once an hour. In the northern direction, many buses reach
Galich (1 hour 20 minutes), 4-5 of them go further to Chukhloma (2.5
hours) and Soligalich (3.5 hours). You can go to the east 4-5 times a
day to Makaryev (2.5 hours).
Arriving by train in Sudislavl is
not very convenient, because the station of the same name is located on
the not very busy Kostroma-Galich line, and even a few kilometers from
the village. The daily Moscow-Vladivostok train can be useful for those
who want to get to Sudislavl directly from Moscow; in the opposite
direction, it stops in the village late at night. The suburban train
Kostroma-Galich (1 pair per day) in relation to Sudislavl will be useful
only to big fans of railways.
1 Bus station, st. Yuryeva, 2.
5:30–22:00.
2 Sudislavl station, village. Tekotovo (6 km north of
the city).
By car: Sudislavl is located 50 km from Kostroma along
the federal highway P243 Kostroma-Sharya-Kirov, at the place where the
road to Galich (70 km), Chukhloma (120 km), Soligalich (170 km) branches
off from it. To the east to the nearest regional center (Ostrovsky) (35
km), to the nearest city (Makaryev) 130 km, to Sharya 270 km. As of
August 2020, active repairs are underway in some places in the vicinity
of Sudislavl (including its bypass). A local road about 25 km long leads
to the Kostroma-Susanino-Bui highway; however, it is not paved along its
entire length, and, traditionally for the Kostroma region, is of
unpredictable quality.
There is no local transport in the village, and its historical part can be walked from end to end in 10 minutes.
Grocery and other stores are concentrated around Sovetskaya Square.
1 Dining room “In the province” , st. Sovetskaya, 2a (in the
district administration building, entrance from Oktyabrskaya Street).
Mon–Fri 8:00–16:30. Not a bad dining room.
2 Dining room, st.
Lunacharskogo, 35. Mon–Fri 8:00–17:00, Sat 8:00–14:00.
3 Bakery
“Sudislast”, Kostromskaya st., 2. 7:00–21:00, there is also a sign “24
hours a day”. The pies are baked directly in the neighboring building.
There is tea and coffee.
4 White elephants , Kostromskaya st., 1.
Chain Kostroma bakery
Hotel "Tretyakov", st. Sovetskaya, 2. ☎ +7 (4942) 30-19-95. double room without amenities 1400 rub., with amenities 1500 rub.
Sudislavl is located on the Korba River (a tributary of the Andoba, Volga basin), 50 kilometers northeast of Kostroma. Located at the fork in the Kostroma-Galich and Kostroma-Manturovo highways. 5 kilometers from the village there is a railway station of the same name (Kostroma - Galich branch).
The name of the city, rooted in the pre-Mongol era, was traditionally
associated by local historians with the son of the Kyiv prince Vladimir
I Svyatoslavich Sudislav Vladimirovich - the only prince who bore this
name. They attributed the founding of Sudislavl to the prince’s youth
(before his imprisonment in Pskov), which would make Sudislavl one of
the oldest cities in the region. However, the absence of any mentioned
connections between Sudislav and North-Eastern Russia, the lack of
mention of the city in reliable sources until 1572, as well as the
absence of any archaeological finds on Cathedral Hill older than the
16th century allow us to doubt this version, based only on the name.
N.A. Zontikov drew attention to the fact that the name Sudislav was not
only princely, but also boyar. According to the version he put forward,
Sudislavl, like a number of neighboring cities, was founded in the 1520s
or 1530s as a fortress during the Russian-Kazan wars. The ancient name,
which could come from the 12th-13th centuries, was probably given in
connection with the name of a certain boyar, who in the old days owned
some property in the neighborhood - a village, village, wasteland or
cropland, which retained his name. Zontikov gives examples of similar
objects that have retained boyar names.
The first reliable
mention of Sudislavl is found in the spiritual will of Ivan the Terrible
in 1572. Sudislavl was assigned to his son Fedor.
The Sudislav
Kremlin (now Cathedral Hill) was made of wood, surrounded by a rampart
and a moat. All around were impassable swamps, with which the legend of
Ivan Susanin is associated. During the 17th-18th centuries, Sudislavl,
having lost its significance as a fortress, continued to develop as a
trading merchant city.
Crafts developed in the city: weaving,
leatherworking, carpentry, and pottery. Sudislavl was known as one of
the centers of trade in flax and leather in the north of Rus', and also
as an extremely mushroom place. At the end of summer, a significant part
of the population of the city and surrounding villages went to picking
mushrooms, which were then sold at special “mushroom fairs” to resellers
from St. Petersburg, Moscow and other large cities.
In the
18th-19th centuries, Sudislavl was one of the major centers of the Old
Believers. An important figure for the city community was Nikolai
Andreevich Papulin, a merchant, owner of a linen factory and an oil
mill, who became rich in the mushroom industry. He opened an almshouse
in the city. Another aspect of Papulin’s activity was collecting icons -
he collected a large number of icons by Andrei Rublev, Stroganov icon
painters, and ancient Pomors. In 1846, as a result of a denunciation to
St. Petersburg, Papulin was arrested and then exiled. After this, the
persecution of the Old Believers intensified, the population of the city
decreased and the prosperity of the city as a whole ended.
Since
1719 - a specific city, since 1778 - a provincial city in the Kostroma
district of the Kostroma province. In the 18th century, a large number
of noble estates were built in the vicinity of the city, some of which
have survived to this day.
In the middle of the 8th century, on
the map of the Atlas of the Russian Empire of 1745, the Moscow province
with the surrounding places at the confluence of the Mesa River and the
Kostroma (Vasseya) River shows the city of Sudislav. At the turn of the
18th - 19th centuries, the city does not exist on maps. On the map of
Kostroma, as well as on the adjacent map of the Yaroslavl governorship
of 1792, the village of Klimtsovo is indicated on the Korba River,
located 2 versts away; on the maps of the General Land Survey Plan of
the Empire of 1799, detailed on a scale of 1 verst per inch, the
intersection of the Kostroma - Galich road and the river Korba is
designated as Seltso Bogoslovskoe. On the road map of 1809 and the
postal map of the empire in 1871, the city is called Sudislav. On the
map of the Kostroma province from the Atlas of 1835, Pog: Sudislav is
indicated.
In the 20th century, Sudislavl lost its urban status
and after 1925 was considered a rural settlement. The appearance of the
city changed little during Soviet times - various government
institutions were located in the former estates (in the Tretyakov estate
there was a hospital, and in the Papulin house there was a music
school). The most significant loss for the urban landscape is the
demolished five-domed building and bell tower of the Assumption
Cathedral. The interior of this cathedral was also destroyed. In the
ensemble of Cathedral Mountain, the tented bell tower and the interior
decoration of the Transfiguration Cathedral remained intact.
Since 1929, Sudislavl has been the regional center of the Sudislavsky
district, since 1963 - an urban-type settlement.