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Veliky Ustyug is located in the north-eastern part
of the Vologda region. It is the ancient Russian city that lies at
the confluence of the Sukhona and Yug (the South in Russian),
because of which he received his initial name (Ustyug - Ustye Yuga
or mouth of Yug river). The prefix "Great" was given to the city by
the royal command for its role in history and commercial
significance. Ustyug lay on the important path of development of the
Komi-Permyak lands, the Urals, and then Siberia, and was home to
many Russian explorers. Later, the value of the city decreased
significantly. Destructive, for churches and cathedrals, the years
of Soviet power Ustyug survived, retaining its wealth of temple
architecture of the XVIII century in the style of northern baroque.
Despite the sufficient transport inaccessibility, in the last
ten to fifteen years, the city has experienced a real tourist boom,
which, incidentally, is seasonal. Veliky Ustyug is positioned as a place of
residence for Ded Moroz (Grandfather Frost, pagad symbol of winter
that brings presents to kids and less Christian version of Santa Claus), which makes it attractive for family
tourism in the winter. Lovers of history and architecture, as well
as the harsh, but beautiful northern nature, it is better to come
here in the summer, it will be a very interesting, informative and
memorable trip.
Veliky Ustyug is
located on the bank of the Sukhona River at the confluence of the
South tributary, 30 kilometers from the border with the Arkhangelsk
Region and 60 kilometers from Kotlas.
1 Confluence of the Sukhona and the South. The confluence of the
Sukhona and the South is the place where the Northern Dvina was
formed.
temple architecture
The city has preserved rich
buildings of temple architecture in the style of the so-called
"northern baroque".
2 Cathedral courtyard.
3 Cathedral of
Procopius the Righteous (Acting Cathedral).
4 Assumption
Cathedral.
5 Church of John of Ustyug.
6 Epiphany Church.
7
Bishop's house with the church of St. Alexis of Moscow.
8 Michael
the Archangel Monastery.
9 Savior Transfiguration Church. Temple
of the former Spaso-Preobrazhensky Monastery, abolished in 1764.
10 Sretensko-Preobrazhenskaya Church. Temple of the former
Spaso-Preobrazhensky Monastery, abolished in 1764.
11 Archangel
Church, st. Settlement. The church is located on the site of the
Settlement - the site of the original buildings of the city. The
Pokrovsky Monastery, abolished in the 17th century, was also located
here.
12 Ascension Church. 17th century
13 Church of Simeon
the Stylite. XVIII century. Current
14 Church of Nikola
Gostunsky.
15 Church of the Myrrh-Bearing Women.
16
Sretensko-Mironositskaya Church.
17 Ilyinskaya Church.
18.
St. George's Church.
19 Pyatnitskaya Church.
20 Leontief
Church.
21 Church of Stephen of Perm. Cemetery, active.
civil architecture
22 Shilov's house.
monuments
23 Monument to Semyon Dezhnev.
24 Monument to Yerofei Khabarov.
25 Monument of Glory.
26 Bust of Admiral Kuznetsov.
27 Monument to V. I. Lenin.
28 Monument to S. M. Kirov.
29 Sculpture Aquarius. The sculpture is made in the form of a
fountain, on which Aquarius pours 2 rivers from jugs. There is an
inscription on the pedestal: “The gray-haired Aquarius connects the
rivers with each other. Connects among the groves and fields Sukhona
with the South "
The name of the city, Ustyug, comes, according to one of the folk
etymological versions, from the location near the mouth of the South.
According to another version, the name came along with settlers from
Gleden, located at the very mouth of the South (that is, the same thing
- the rapprochement of Ustyug with Ust-South). More likely origin from
the Finno-Ugric "uftyug" with the meaning of river, water, then
rethought by the Slavic population.
The epithet "Great" city
received for its role in history and trade importance. In the 16th
century, the commercial importance of Ustyug increased so much that Ivan
IV included it among the oprichnina cities that gave money "for the
sovereign's household". It was during this period that the name Great
was approved for him.
In Russian historiography, Veliky Ustyug is known primarily as
the northern outpost of Ancient Rus' and one of the largest
strongholds of the Slavic colonization of the Russian North, which
took place from the 11th to the 12th centuries.
The main
interests of the Slavs in the northern outskirts were primarily
economic benefits. Profitable fur trade, convenient transport and
trade routes, the possibility of establishing tributary relations
with the local population - all this became the leading factor that
initially moved small military detachments, and then the masses of
the ordinary population, to difficult transitions and the
organization of settlements and new economic systems.
The
textbook version of the history of the founding of the city of
Veliky Ustyug is a variant of the northern chronicles: Ustyug,
Dvina, Vychegodsko-Vymskaya and later editions of the chroniclers
Titov and Vologdin. All these sources speak of the formation of the
ancient city “on the mountain, which is still called Gleden ... at
the mouth of the Yuga River” by Prince Vsevolod the Big Nest of
Rostov in 1178, and Ustyug appeared several decades later “in a
place called Cherny Pryluk”. It was built by his son Vsevolod
Konstantin. The original place for the city was not chosen by chance
- "on a high and safe bank, from which it was convenient to see
enemies and fight with them." Hence the tendency of many researchers
to lead the name of Gleden from the verb "to look."
Modern
researchers are increasingly inclined to recognize the Novgorod
priority in the development of the Ustyug district. There are
various arguments in favor of this hypothesis. The author of one of
the first descriptions of the city offers as evidence the mention of
the "Yugra Territory" and the "Ugra" that inhabited it in the fable
about Yuryat Tagorovich, presumably created in the 11th century, and
the territories of the Dvina (Vina River) on the way to the
legendary Bjarmia (Parmia) in the Scandinavian sagas.
At the
same time, the annals contain repeated references to the fact that
the Novgorodians of Ustyug "fought and burned." According to N. A.
Makarov, this phenomenon was most likely associated with increased
competition and struggle for the richest source of precious fur and
a new active market. For the same reason, Vyatchane, Vychegodtsy,
Dvinyans, Bulgars, and Chuds appeared under the walls of the city.
The active hostilities that unfolded in this period within the
Ustyug district were reflected in toponyms, among which one of the
most indicative is the toponym Ratimirovskaya (from “measured by the
army”) - the name of the volost surrounded by legends. An indicative
source is the letter of the Novgorod archbishop John to the abbot of
the Arkhangelsk monastery, found by N. Suvorov among the documents
on the history of the Russian hierarchy.
The document
confirms the presence of Novgorod monasteries on the banks of the
Northern Dvina. This case could be considered an isolated case, if
under the date 1385 in the annals of Titov there was no message
about a campaign against Ustyug by a detachment of the Perm diocese
sent by the Novgorod ruler to strengthen influence, however, the
already fairly developed city managed to fight back, not letting the
enemy under its walls, on the Black River.
The Veliky Ustyug
chronicle directly says that there were "ancient" times when the
city was "under the area of the Grand Duke Svyatopolk, Yaropolk,
Vladimir of Kyiv and Novgorod."
The Novgorod wave of
settlement is represented by archaeological materials from the
following sites: Esiplevo-I and -III, Krylovskoye, Gostinskoye,
Gleden, Ustyug and others, where glass bracelets and beads (7
points), iron axes, characteristic of the northwestern and Baltic
cultures, were present X centuries of Baltic and Old Russian forms,
characteristic decorations and crosses (3 points). N.A. Makarov, who
studied most of these monuments, concludes that already from the end
of the 10th - beginning of the 11th century, the flow of standard
medieval things of Eastern European and Baltic types was developed
on the territory of the Ustyug district. An interesting message is
about a treasure found near Ustyug in 1840 and consisting of
Anglo-Saxon and German coins dated from the 10th-11th centuries, on
the basis of which N.V. Guslistov concluded that the connections of
the local population were far from being limited to nearby
territories. Considerable merit in this belonged to the Novgorod
merchants, who had extensive external ties.
Thus, it is
possible to outline two main directions of population migration that
left a mark on the archaeological map of the Ustyug region: from
Novgorod and the Upper Volga.
Veliky Ustyug is one of the 15 ancient Russian cities along with
the cities of the Golden Ring. Of the buildings, ancient temples,
cloisters and monasteries predominate.
Veliky Ustyug is the
birthplace of the Russian Father Frost, the main wizard of the
country since 1998.
For the first time in the sources, the
city of Ustyug may have been mentioned in 1207. Vladimir Prince
Vsevolod gives the Big Nest to his son Konstantin as a lot of Rostov
with five cities, it is assumed that Ustyug is among them (although
it is not indicated in the listing).
The first undeniable
written mention: in 1212, the Monk Cyprian of Ustyug founded the
first in the Russian North - the Archangel Michael Monastery. In
fact, this marked the beginning of the foundation and development of
a real city on the left side of the Sukhona River.
In 1218,
Ustyug was attacked by the Kama Bulgars, who fought against the
Russian princes for the Volga-Kama waterway, which gave access to
rich hunting grounds.
Since the middle of the XII century,
mutual aggression in relations between Ustyug and Novgorod has been
increasingly traced [9]. From all this information, one could draw a
conclusion about the reorientation of the Ustyug residents to Moscow
and Rostov, but among their possessions (letters on the
Novgorod-Moscow borders and the distribution of spheres of
influence) there is no mention of Ustyug as someone else's
possession. An interesting reference is made by the author to
Herberstein, who mentioned a special Ustyuzhan language that existed
until the beginning of the 16th century, unlike any known to him.
The city was sacked by the Mongol-Tatars in 1238, but managed to
quickly recover. Two years later, the princes Yuri and Svyatoslav
Vsevolodovichi led the Russian squads against the Bulgars "from the
Rostov regiment of the ambassador, and the other from Ustyug to the
top of the Kama."
Wedged in the northeast into the
possessions of the Novgorod Republic, Ustyug from its very
foundation served as a stronghold of the Rostov-Suzdal princes,
blocking the road to the ancient Zavolochye (see Ustyug chronicle).
From 1364 to 1474 there was the Ustyug principality with its center
in Veliky Ustyug.
In the XIV-XV centuries, the struggle that flared up for the North
did not leave Ustyug aside either. The Novgorodians attacked him six
times. The Ustyuzhans were on the side of the Moscow princes.
At
the end of the XIV century, under the Grand Duke Vasily I, Ustyug was
finally assigned to the Grand Duchy of Moscow. In 1446, Ustyug repelled
a Tatar raid. In the middle of the 16th century, Ustyug ceased to be an
outlying fortification and lost its military significance. However, due
to its favorable geographical position (due to the opening of a trade
route along the Sukhona and the Northern Dvina to the White Sea), it
continued to develop as a trading center. The growth of trade served as
an impetus for the development of handicraft industries and art crafts.
In the 16th century, the commercial importance of Ustyug increased
so much that Ivan IV included it among the oprichnina cities that gave
money "for the sovereign's household". It was during this period that
the name Great was approved for him.
The 17th century was the
heyday of Veliky Ustyug, as well as for other cities that stood on the
North Dvina waterway. Almost all foreign trade of the Russian state, due
to the lack of access to the Baltic Sea, was carried out along the Dvina
through Arkhangelsk. Until the end of the 17th century, the city was the
center of the vast Veliko-Ustyug region.
Following the example of
St. Stephen of Perm, the Ustyugians are exploring new lands: they are
moving to Siberia, the Far East, and Russian America. A reminder of this
in the modern city are the streets named after Ustyug residents Dezhnev,
Atlasov, Mikhail Matveyevich Buldakov, Nevodchikov, Shalaurov, Bakhov.
In the 18th century, due to the movement of trade routes, Veliky
Ustyug, like many other northern cities, lost its trade and transport
significance. With the loss of its former glory, the administrative
position of Ustyug also changed.
In 1708, when Peter I divided
the country into eight provinces, Veliky Ustyug became part of the
Arkhangelsk province, became the center of the Veliky Ustyug district
and received the status of a provincial city (since 1719 the center of
the Veliky Ustyug province), and since 1780 as part of the Vologda
viceroy. In the 19th century it became a county town of the Vologda
province.
At the end of the 18th century, due to “extreme
crowding”, several large fires occurred in the city, as a result of
which almost the entire settlement burned out. Several plans for
rebuilding the city have been proposed. The plan of the land surveyor
Golubev was finally approved, which is considered a model for the
preservation of the old buildings.
On December 4, 1911, a women's
teacher's seminary was opened.
In April 1920, the chairman of the local City Executive Committee,
E.E. Gorovoy, proposed establishing a state university in the city.
In 1918-1929, Veliky Ustyug was the center of the North Dvina
province of the RSFSR. Then in 1929-1930 the city was the center of the
Severo-Dvinsky district of the Northern Territory (Arkhangelsk). After
the abolition of the district, from 1930 to 1936, together with the
Veliky Ustyug district, it was part of the Northern Territory
(Arkhangelsk). In 1936-1937 - the district center of the Northern Region
(Arkhangelsk). After the abolition of the Northern Region on September
23, 1937, as a regional center, together with Velikoustyugsky District,
it became part of the Vologda Region.
In 1921-1922, the North
Dvina University was established in the city, the first in the Russian
North. There was a teacher's institute. In the 30s of the XX century,
great damage was done to the original architectural appearance of the
city, many cathedrals, churches and chapels were destroyed and
disfigured. In particular, the churches of John the Baptist, the Trinity
(1705), Alexander Nevsky (1707), Barbara the Great Martyr (1709),
Varlaam Khutynsky (1704), Resurrection (1710), Nativity of Christ
(1716), John the Theologian (1720), Peter and Paul (1749), as well as
the Yaikovsky Philippovsky Monastery.
Roads connect Veliky Ustyug with other towns. The road to the
north runs to Krasavino and further to Kotlas. The one to the south
runs to Nikolsk and further to Manturovo, where it connects to the
road to Kostroma. The road to the southwest connects Veliky Ustyug
with Vologda via Totma. It was built in the beginning of the 21st
century; before this road was opened, the only way to get from
Veliky Ustyug to Vologda was via Nikolsk and Totma. All these roads
are paved.
An unpaved road, originating from Kuzino (which is
connected with Veliky Ustyug by a ferry crossing) runs to Luza and
continues to Lalsk and further to the Komi Republic.
The
railroad connects Veliky Ustyug with Yadrikha railway station on the
railroad connecting Konosha and Kotlas. The passenger service to
Veliky Ustyug was discontinued in 2005.
The Sukhona, the Yug,
and the Northern Dvina are all navigable in Veliky Ustyug, but there
is no passenger navigation except for ferry crossings.
Veliky
Ustyug is served by the Veliky Ustyug Airport with occasional
passenger service to Vologda.
Veliky Ustyug is located in the northeast of the European part of
Russia in the central part of the East European Plain on the left bank
of the Sukhona River, at the source of the Northern Dvina. The average
height above sea level is 70 m.
Veliky Ustyug is approximately
equidistant (400–450 km) from three regional centers: Vologda, Kirov,
and Syktyvkar. Distance to Moscow - 914 km, to St. Petersburg - 1100 km,
to Kotlas - 69 km.
The average date for the appearance of the first persistent frosts in Veliky Ustyug is November 18.
The city of Veliky Ustyug, as well as the entire Vologda Oblast, is located in the time zone designated by the international standard as Moscow time (MSK). The offset from UTC is +3:00.
In 2006, a plant for the production of wood fuel pellets (pellets)
was launched - the largest in the country. In 2010, he stopped
production due to lack of sales, but in 2018 his work was resumed.
In the 17th century, a well-known Russian folk art craft developed
in Veliky Ustyug - Veliky Ustyug blackening on silver. In 1933, the
Northern Niello artel was formed, which later turned into the Northern
Niello factory, which produces artistic silver products, including
jewelry, which employs about 500 people. Souvenirs of the Veliky Ustyug
patterns factory are also known (weaving, carving and painting on birch
bark: caskets, tuesas, etc.). A brush-brush factory has been operating
in the city, which has existed since 1922.
On the initiative of the former mayor of Moscow Yuri Luzhkov and the
governor of the Vologda region Vyacheslav Pozgalev, since 1999 the
tourist project "Veliky Ustyug - Father Frost's birthplace" has been
operating in the Vologda region. The grand opening of the House of Santa
Claus took place on December 25, 1999.
Tourist trains from
Moscow, St. Petersburg, Vologda, Kazan go to Veliky Ustyug, specialized
bus trips have been developed.
During the first three years (from
1999 to 2002), the number of tourists visiting the city of Veliky Ustyug
increased from 2,000 to 32,000[38]. According to the then Governor of
the Vologda Oblast, Vyacheslav Pozgalev, since the beginning of the
project, more than a million letters from children from various
countries have been sent to Santa Claus, the turnover in the city has
increased 15 times, and unemployment has decreased.
According to
the House of Santa Claus, in 2009, 204,849 people visited the wizard's
homeland. Compared to the beginning of 2009, in 2010 the number of
guests increased by 12%. The number of letters that came to the Wizard's
Mail is also up compared to last year and amounted to 157 thousand.
In 2018, the annual flow of tourists to the "homeland" of Santa
Claus reached 300 thousand people.
The Veliky Ustyug cultural and leisure center operates in the city,
which includes the House of Culture, the city park of culture and
recreation and the Lad Center for Traditional Folk Culture.
The House
of Culture was opened in 1949 in a building that in 1844 belonged to the
merchant Grigory Usov. In 2014, 40 club associations worked in the House
of Culture, including: the honored folklore group "Istoki", the folk
dance group "Ustyuzhanochka", the children's dance group
"Forget-me-nots", the folk circus "Courage", the folk choir of veterans,
the folk group - club of accordionists "Sukhonskiye perebory" and
others.
The Park of Culture and Leisure, located in the city center
and being part of the former merchant estate of the Ustyug merchant M.
M. Buldakov, dates back to 1824, when it was donated to the city and
became the “Public Garden”. In 1937, the "Public Garden" was renamed the
"City Park", and since 2009 it has been named after M. M. Buldakov. The
oldest park in the Vologda Oblast with relic trees and a linden alley of
the 19th century, recreation areas and attractions is a favorite place
for family holidays and city events.
The center of traditional folk
culture "Lad", established in 2007 with the aim of preserving and
restoring folk traditions, includes: weaving workshops, workshops for
tailoring and reconstructing traditional folk costumes, patchwork,
painting, weaving and carving on birch bark, lace weaving, clay toy,
folk doll and others.
The Veliky Ustyug State Historical,
Architectural and Art Museum-Reserve is a multidisciplinary museum
complex with 27 monuments of federal significance, including: Cathedral
of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary (XVII-XVIII centuries),
Mikhailo-Arkhangelsky Cathedral (XVII century), Trinity Cathedral of the
Trinity-Gleden Monastery (XVII-XVIII centuries). The museum-reserve has
a modern depository (depository) with expositions of storage available
to visitors, restoration workshops and a lecture and exhibition hall.
For the project "Restoration of the architectural monument of the 19th -
early 20th century "Chebaevsky Manor" and the creation of the Repository
of the Veliky Ustyug State Historical, Architectural and Art
Museum-Reserve, the creative team of the museum was awarded the State
Prize of the Vologda Region in the field of culture and art for 2008. In
the structure of the museum-reserve 5 museums: the Museum of History and
Culture of Veliky Ustyug, the Museum of Ethnography, the Museum of Old
Russian Art, the Museum of Nature and the Museum of New Year and
Christmas Toys.
In Veliky Ustyug there are the following health-improving
institutions:
Veliky Ustyug Central District Hospital
Two
children's clinics
Adult polyclinic
Rehabilitation clinic
health center
Sports and recreation complex
Youth Sports School
Youth
Swimming School
Ice Palace "Moroz-Arena"
Veliky Ustyug, a city with a rich Orthodox history, is the
birthplace, life and death of dozens of saints of the Russian land, the
most famous of them: considered the patron saint of the city, the first
holy fool for the sake of Christ Procopius the Righteous, the preacher
of Christianity in the Komi land St. Stephen of Perm, the holy righteous
John and Mary, St. Cyprian - founder of the Mikhailo-Arkhangelsk
Monastery, Righteous John of Ustyug, St. Philip Yaikovsky - founder of
the Znamensky Monastery, including the New Martyrs: Archbishops Alexy
(Belkovsky) and Nikolai (Klementiev), Archpriests Konstantin Bogoslovsky
and Sergiy Rokhletsov. Martyr Nicephorus Yugov.
The population of
the city before the revolution was very pious, almost all the churches
were built with donations from wealthy Ustyug residents and were
supported by parishioners.
In the city, in addition to Orthodox
churches, there was a synagogue and a Protestant church.
There
are 7 active Orthodox churches in Veliky Ustyug: the Cathedral of
Procopius the Righteous, the cemetery church of Stephen of Perm and the
Church of St. Simeon the Stylite, the Church of the Great Martyr George
the Victorious, the Church of St. Leonty of Rostov, the Church of St.
Sergius of Radonezh in Dymkovskaya Sloboda and the Mikhailo-Arkhangelsky
Monastery. There are two Sunday schools and a pilgrimage service.
Bishop Stefan, the baptizer of the Permian lands, was born in Veliky
Ustyug. In the XIV century, he went to the Komi lands, created an
alphabet for them and translated the main church writings into their
language. Ranked among the saints as St. Stephen of Perm.
Veliky
Ustyug is the birthplace of outstanding sailors and explorers who played
a significant role in the development of Siberia and Russian America:
Vladimir Atlasov - Russian explorer
Semyon Dezhnev - Russian explorer
and traveler
Vasily Shilov is the discoverer of the Aleutian Islands
and the first compiler of their map.
Mikhail Buldakov is a leading
director of the Russian-American Company, an explorer of Alaska.
Upstream of the Sukhona, on its left bank, there is a village in which,
close to the water, a memorial cross was erected in honor of the fact
that Yerofey Khabarov, a Russian explorer of the Far East and traveler,
was born in this village.
The sociologist Pitirim Sorokin, on his
father's side, was from Ustyug, he had been there several times,
including passing the exams for the gymnasium course at the men's
gymnasium as an external student. Later, Pitirim Sorokin led an active
cultural and political life in Ustyug, devoted several chapters to
Ustyug in his travel notes “Party Lace”, and after the establishment of
Bolshevik power in Veliky Ustyug in the spring of 1918, he spent several
weeks in the Ustyug prison.