"A look into the past. The thousand-year history of Staraya Russa in archaeological finds. Staraya Russa Staraya Russa Icon of the Mother of God

The city of Staraya Russa is rightfully considered one of the oldest cities in the Russian Federation. It is located on the picturesque southern coast, just a hundred kilometers from Veliky Novgorod. It is generally accepted that the colonialists of Kievan Rus founded the first settlement here in the tenth century. But the first mention of it in chronicles appeared only in 1167.

Staraya Russa, whose attractions attract travelers from all over the world, developed thanks to the wealth of the surrounding lands. The city not only occupied an advantageous position on the iconic route “from the Varangians to the Greeks”. Salt production, crafts, and trade developed here. By the end of the eighteenth century, Staraya Russa became a district town, and soon they stopped mining salt here. However, Staraya Russa, whose photos are stunning at first sight, received a new specialization and became a resort. The balneo-mud sanatorium invited people to recuperate, drink mineral water and plunge into healing mud.

The water of local springs contains calcium, sodium and chlorine; iron and hydrogen sulfide are found in the mud. Nine mineral springs merge to form lakes of amazing beauty with a healing microclimate around. Therefore, people suffering from diseases of the musculoskeletal, nervous system, digestive, respiratory, and skin diseases come here.

Staraya Russa, whose attractions are very diverse, is a city with a rich history. He remembers such great people as N. A. Dobrolyubov, E. F. Napravnik, K. M. Fofanov, B. M. Kustodiev. Alexey Alexandrovich and Vladimir Alexandrovich were treated here. Lovers of antiquity can visit the Spaso-Preobrazhensky Monastery - the main shrine of the city and an architectural monument. Founded back in the twelfth century, it amazes with its mighty walls and amazing exhibitions of the Old Russian Museum of Local Lore.

Staraya Russa. Its sights are also represented by the Church of the Great Martyr Mina and the Church of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker (fourteenth century), the Trinity Church and the Resurrection Cathedral (seventeenth century). Among the more modern attractions, the house-museum of F.M. will be interesting. Dostoevsky, the writer lived in the city for some time. Here he created such masterpiece novels as “Demons” and “The Brothers Karamazov”. Fans have the chance to experience the atmosphere of that time, as the interiors are furnished with original nineteenth-century furniture, a collection of personal photographs, belongings, documents and books of the writer.

Staraya Russa, whose sights are worth seeing, attracts with its comfort, abundance of green areas, parks, monuments and fountains. There is a special atmosphere and color here that is difficult to convey on paper. You just need to experience it personally. Veliky Novgorod, Staraya Russa are cities that are considered the cradle of Russian culture, the soul and heart of the Russian people, the sources from which it all began. Therefore, every person is simply obliged to visit them at least once in his life to pay tribute to the memory of his ancestors.

This ancient city in the Novgorod region preserves the memory of the great writer who once lived there and created his masterpieces here.*

About the author. Galina Evgenievna Lebedinalives in St. Petersburg. She graduated from the Orthodox St. Tikhon's University for the Humanities with a degree in social pedagogy. Currently - head of the art studio.

The small, cozy district town seemed to be hidden in the Novgorod lands, modestly, like some old man-man of prayer hiding from human eyes.

...We fell in love with Old Russia by reading the diaries of the wife of the great writer Anna Grigorievna Dostoevskaya. "... We fell in love with Staraya Russa very much... But besides the city itself, we also fell in love with Gribbe's dacha... Mr. Gribbe's dacha was not a city house, but rather was a landowner's estate, with a large shady garden, a vegetable garden, sheds, a cellar, etc. I especially appreciated it Fyodor Mikhailovich had an excellent Russian bathhouse, located in the garden, which he often used without taking baths,” - writes Anna Grigorievna.

The dacha stood on the bank of a river, lined with huge elms, planted in Arakcheev’s times.

For several years in a row we went to Russa thanks to Fyodor Mikhailovich.

We loved to walk along the old cobblestone street, which was miraculously preserved. They loved to walk along the river on the ground: either along the paths going down to the river, or among the coastal bushes hiding in the thickets. And they knew: a great writer wandered here. This pristine embankment was preserved in its untouched beauty, as Dostoevsky knew it. Protected places! Georgy Ivanovich Smirnov, inspired by the literary feat of Dostoevsky, did a lot to preserve this protected Rus'. He fought, one might say, to every piece, to an inch of land, for what belonged to the writer’s memory. But we didn’t know Smirnov, we are simply reconstructing his image from the memories of other people who knew him closely. He died. We were lucky enough to meet the successor of his work, Vera Ivanovna Bogdanova. We met her on our very first visit. We visited her and were touched by her warm welcome, and also received an unforgettable delicious orange jam as a gift.

When I asked how she came to faith, Vera Ivanovna answered simply:

From early childhood I was a believer. Our entire village was believer.

Vera Ivanovna was born in a village, in the very outback of the Batetsky district of the Novgorod region, which is eighteen kilometers from Luga.

There were two temples in our village. The village was divided into two parts and belonged to two landowners, and each of them built a temple for their peasants. One was the Nikolsky temple, and the other was in honor of St. Demetrius of Thessaloniki, where we went with the whole family; there, in the cemetery near the temple, all our relatives were buried.

Have you heard about hidden Rus'? - Vera Ivanovna, in turn, asked the question and answered herself: - Russia, which preserved the faith, preserved the rituals, preserved loyalty to God.

When they came to close the cathedral in the village of Gorodnya in 1962, this was under Khrushchev, they collected all the icons and took them to the bathhouse to be burned. Mom came home and cried.

And for a long time we thought that the icons had been burned, and we grieved over this, but several decades later, when services in the church resumed again, in 1993 the icons returned.

We looked at Vera Ivanovna in surprise. She smiled:

We also thought they were burned, but the stoker who was tasked with burning them distributed them to people instead. And so these people began to bring them back to the temple.

We came to Russa with my husband, both teachers - he in mathematics, and I in literature, got a job in the local history museum, - Vera Ivanovna began to tell, - at that time Georgy Ivanovich Smirnov was restoring the Dostoevsky Museum.

Scientific work must be carried out in a museum, otherwise it is not a real museum, says Vera Ivanovna. - The heart should tremble with authenticity, even if the exhibits did not belong to the person to whom the museum is dedicated, but they should belong to his era. Each exhibit must have its own “dossier”.

A black graceful cat came out of the next room and looked at us inquisitively - is everything okay? - and then peacefully rubbed himself against his legs, without taking his devoted eyes off his mistress.

Well, have you come to check? - Vera Ivanovna laughed.

Handsome,” I said in approval to the cat.

“We found the cat in a trash heap and at first we fed it with a syringe,” the owner told us the story of how he came to be with them.

The cat delicately left, and we continued our conversation.

How did your life change when you came into such close contact with the life of Dostoevsky?

Vera Ivanovna did not immediately answer this question. After thinking a little, she said:

How did Dostoevsky influence? I began to feel my children more subtly. (Vera Ivanovna has three children.) I began to understand them more, to feel their pain more acutely when I read about Ilyushenka in The Brothers Karamazov. “Children heal the soul,” “Children are given to us to touch,” she quoted her favorite writer.

All children are like God, they smile at everyone, they love everyone and look at the world and people trustingly, but why do some of them so soon grow into tyrants? - asked my husband Gennady.

We are to blame for this, we,” Vera Ivanovna sighed. - Do you know Dostoevsky’s favorite prayer? “I place all my hope in You, Mother of God, keep me under Your roof.” Every evening he came to his children, read this prayer over them and blessed them at night.

What was Staraya Russa for Dostoevsky?

Staraya Russa is his home,” Vera Ivanovna almost exclaimed. - In the deepest sense, a house, and a garden, and soil, and earth. This was the only place that belonged to him, the place where he had his own. A home where he was loved and waited for. House with a garden. Dostoevsky attached great importance to the garden. He believed that if a person has land, then he participates in government. He was worried that his children would not grow up to be “stupid”. “Stryutsky,” according to Dostoevsky, is a man without land, without roots, who has nothing to value. And he wrote in his diary: “Humanity will be renewed in the garden, it will be straightened out in the garden.”

Communication with the land ennobles, work on the land is revitalizing work, added Vera Ivanovna

“My husband liked our shady garden and large paved courtyard, where he took healthy walks on rainy days, when the whole city was buried in mud and it was impossible to walk along the unpaved streets. But we both especially liked the small but conveniently located rooms of the dacha, with their antique, heavy mahogany furniture and furnishings, in which we lived so warmly and comfortably. In addition, the thought that our dear Alyosha was born here made us consider the house something like family,” wrote Anna Grigorievna.

Anna Grigorievna and Fyodor Mikhailovich were afraid of losing their “favorite corner.” And it so happened that the heiress of the estate decided to sell the house and asked for a thousand rubles for it. At that time, this was a large sum, and the couple did not have that kind of money. Then Anna Grigorievna asked her brother, Ivan Grigorievich Snitkin, to buy a house in her name in order to resell it to them when the money appeared.

“My brother fulfilled my request and bought a house, and after my husband’s death I bought a house from my brother in my name. Thanks to this purchase, in the words of my husband, we “created our own nest,” where we happily went in the early spring and from where we so did not want to leave in the late autumn. Fyodor Mikhailovich considered our old Russian dacha a place of his physical and moral peace and, I remember, he always put off reading his favorite and interesting books until his arrival in Russa, where the solitude he desired was relatively rarely disturbed by idle visitors,” - writes Anna Dostoevskaya in her memoirs.

We looked at Vera Ivanovna “for a minute” and talked with her for two hours. Therefore, we still had to say goodbye to her in order to give her peace.

Peace, said Vera Ivanovna, is when you live in harmony with God. The more I live, the more I am convinced that God alone is perfect, therefore nothing perfect can be built on earth without God. For God, the main thing is love.

Dostoevsky is a Christian writer, moreover, he is Orthodox.

...I still have before my eyes the image of a beautiful Russian woman with kind wrinkles near her eyes and blond hair hidden under a headscarf. The image of Vera Ivanovna for me became the image of that hidden Rus', rich in talents, rich in faith, and its fearless confessor.

We walked around Russa for a long time; we wanted to “digest” and comprehend the new things we heard. It must be said that Russa is a city of gardens: I went into the courtyard, and there was an apple orchard. One day we were walking along the outskirts of the city, and the street led us to a dead end. It turned out that it was a garden. You can say that this garden was a people's garden; they said that there used to be a boarding school for children on this site. I don't know who owned it before. In August you could see grandmothers with baskets and boys knocking down apples with sticks. When we came to Russa, we always visited this garden first. We rejoiced at its accessibility and beauty. Various types of apple trees grew in it. We wandered around the orchard and tried all kinds of apples.

We reached the Polist River, walked along the Living Bridge and from there admired the banks of the river, the Resurrection Cathedral, reflected, as in a mirror, in the leisurely and serene river. Everything is as before - a charming sunset, the charm of antiquity, but the territory of “our garden” has been purchased, the garden itself has been half cut down and a brick road has been laid along the shore leading to the writer’s house.

Would Fyodor Mikhailovich like to walk along a road covered in asphalt? - the husband asked thoughtfully, seeing this creation of human hands.

Ambrose of Optina once said wise words: “We must live on earth as a wheel turns, just one point touches the ground, and the rest tends upward; and even if we lie down, we can’t get up.”.

How can we learn to live like this, so that even when we touch the earth, we do not harm it, do not spoil its beauty...

Old Russian Icon of the Mother of God

It is not surprising that F.M. led us to this shrine in Staraya Russa, especially revered by the Rushans. Dostoevsky. St. George's Church, in which this shrine is located - the miraculous icon of the Mother of God, called the "Starorusskaya" - rises not far from the house that the Dostoevsky family rented. On their very first visit to Staraya Russa, in 1872, they stayed in the house of priest Rumyantsev, who served in this church. Here's how Anna Grigorievna writes: “ Finally, at three o'clock in the afternoon, the ship approached the pier. We took our things, sat down on the rulers and went to look for the priest Rumyantsev’s dacha that had been hired for us. However, it didn’t take me long to look for it: we had just turned from the embankment of the Pererytitsa River into Pyatnitskaya Street when the cab driver said to me: “And there’s the priest standing at the gate, apparently waiting for you.” Indeed, knowing that we would arrive around May 15, the priest and his family had been waiting for us and were now sitting and standing at the gate. They all greeted us joyfully, and we immediately felt that we were among good people. Father, having greeted my husband, who was riding in the first cab, approached the second one, on which I was sitting with Fedya in my arms, and so my little boy, rather wild and not being picked up by anyone, very friendly reached out to Father, tore off his wide-brimmed shirt. hat and threw it on the ground. We all laughed, and from that moment began the friendship of Fyodor Mikhailovich and mine with Father Ioann Rumyantsev and his venerable wife, Ekaterina Petrovna, which lasted for decades and ended only with the death of these worthy people.”

St. George's Church stands on the street of the same name. Georgievskaya Street is located near the city’s Cathedral Square. And if you go from the center of the square, the route will run past low city houses that look like white marshmallow. And if you walk from the Dostoevsky house, then to the right and left you will be surrounded by cozy wooden village houses, closely pressed against each other by fences. Viburnum bushes are planted along the street. It was along this street that Dmitry Karamazov walked: " Viburnum, the berries are so red!” he whispered, not knowing why.”

We stopped at the church gate, where locals were sitting poor people, city residents. This is the only temple in the city where we saw people with outstretched hands. I thought that it was probably Providence that preserved them here. " When my husband didn’t have change, but they asked him near our entrance, he would bring the beggars to our apartment and give out the money here.”. (A. Dostoevskaya, “Memoirs”)

Dostoevsky’s daughter, Lyubov Fedorovna, recalls that Dostoevsky “ He gave to all the poor who met on his way, and could never refuse money if someone told him about their misfortune and asked for help.”

Having passed the beggars, stuffing sweets into their outstretched hands, we entered the temple. Now I’m writing and thinking that if the beggars, the wretched, the sick, the poor are standing in front of the doors of heaven... will we get to heaven without passing them?

The church was preparing for the Feast of the Assumption. On the wooden floor there was a path made of grass and flowers up to the altar and near the Old Russian Icon. The Old Russian icon impresses not only with its size (278 cm height and 202 cm width), but also with its unique history. The icon was once brought to Staraya Russa from Greece, from the city of Olviopolis.

Tradition says that when a pestilence occurred in Tikhvin in 1570, the residents of the city asked to borrow a miraculous icon. In a procession of the cross, the Tikhvin residents walked around the city and carried it in their arms into the Assumption Church of the Tikhvin Monastery. The pestilence has stopped.

...The Tikhvin people were in no hurry to return the icon, and soon they completely refused to return it. And only in 1787 it was possible to obtain only a list of the miraculous icon. The headman of the Resurrection Cathedral, Ilya Petrovich Krasilnikov, himself went to Tikhvin, and when they once again refused to return the icon, then, at his order, Tikhvin painters copied the Old Russian icon “measure in moderation.” In 1788, the residents of Rush met an image that became the main shrine of the Resurrection Cathedral in the city of Staraya Russa. Despite the fact that this list has repeatedly demonstrated miraculous power, healing physical and mental illnesses, the residents did not give up hope of returning the ancient Image. A joyful event happened during the reign of Emperor Alexander III, who ordered that the request of the Rushans be approved positively. Wanting to say goodbye with dignity to the shrine that had protected their city for three hundred years, the Tikhvin residents carried the miraculous icon with a religious procession around Tikhvin. And Staraya Russa was preparing to greet her with dignity! The day of September 18 became a significant event for Staraya Russa. Staraya Russa has not seen such a gathering of clergy and pilgrims for a long time. The icon was greeted with the ringing of bells, which merged with the voices of many singers. The service ended only at three o'clock in the afternoon. And the ringing of bells did not cease in the monastery all day. Rejoice, opening of the doors of heaven! (from Akathist to the Most Holy Theotokos and Ever-Virgin Mary)

The shrine returned to its native land, and an exact list remained in Tikhvin. The long-awaited return took place to the general joy of the townspeople. But it turned out that the holy faces on the icons are located differently. The face of the Mother of God is meekly turned towards everyone who comes to Her image. On her left hand is depicted the Divine Child, but His face is turned away from Her. In the monastery, on the icon, the Child also rests on the left hand of the Mother of God, but His face is turned towards Her in this image.

Until now, this difference cannot be explained. Many people have different interpretations about what caused the Baby to “turn away.” One of the versions was this: The baby grieves over human sins. Others believed that He turned away at the sight of the wicked life of the city's inhabitants. It is also possible that, restoring the Image, darkened by time, the icon painters changed the position of the face. But they did not exclude the miraculous transformation of the icon.

After the revolution, church valuables were confiscated. A museum opens in the city cathedral, where the Old Russian icon is transferred and where the list of the icon made by I.P. was kept. Krasilnikov. In 1941, during the occupation, the icon disappeared, but the silver robe encrusted with precious stones that adorned the Old Russian Icon of the Mother of God miraculously survived. Now in the St. George Church a list of the miraculous icon is venerated. This is a brief history of the miraculous Icon, which is the most revered in the city. The great writer bowed before Him when he came to the Liturgy.

When you first enter the temple, you are surprised not so much by the painted vaults and the abundance of ancient images, but by the atmosphere itself. It seems that this ancient temple has stopped at that time of the last century. The wooden flooring creaks underfoot, candles are burning on an ancient massive candlestick near the Old Russian icon. The eyes of the Mother of God look dispassionately. Her silence is a prayer. She is prayer itself! And She is not present somewhere in another dimension, but here! And this makes it both scary and calm at the same time. The grandmothers serving in the temple were distinguished by their unhurried nature. Everything was done leisurely and calmly. It generally seemed to us that there was a different time dimension in the city. They willingly showed us the place where Dostoevsky prayed. Throughout the Liturgy he usually stood before the icon of the Joy of All Who Sorrow. It must be said that the image of the Mother of God of All Who Sorrow, Joy of All Who Sorrow, was his favorite icon. According to his wife, he loved to pray “in silence, without witnesses.” “I did not follow him, and only half an hour later I found him in a corner of the cathedral, so immersed in a prayerful and tender mood that at the first moment he did not recognize me,” writes Anna Dostoevskaya. The writer’s doctor, Stepan Dmitrievich Yanovsky, wrote that “his truest medicine was always prayer.”

And this icon was given by Saint John of Kronstadt himself,” said an elderly parishioner sitting in a corner on a chair. I went to a dark corner under a low arch and, shining a candle, read the dedicatory note on the Smolensk Icon of the Mother of God.

Our Old Russian Icon is miraculous,” the old woman continued to speak, slowly pronouncing each word. “She is our Intercessor, she educates us and heals us,” here the grandmother sighed. - Everyone has their own illnesses, after all.

You see, the Baby seemed to have turned away from the Mother of God,” she said just as quietly and slowly. - Everyone thinks that He turned away, but He turned to us, turned to us.

We looked at the icon - and it seemed to us that the entire movement of the Mother of God in the icon was directed towards people. She seems to say: “Whatever He tells you, do it” (John 2:5).

The festive service began, and we no longer dared to distract the old lady with questions.

* November 11 (NS) is the birthday of the great writer Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky, he was born on October 30 (November 11), 1821. We dedicate this publication to this memorable day.

June 10th, 2016 , 12:55 pm

It’s time for me to learn something from life’s lessons, otherwise I continue to ride the rake, expecting something from this or that place. Moreover, the formula is surprisingly simple and always works: when you expect a lot from a trip or from a city, your expectations are not met and you are left with a feeling of deep dissatisfaction. If you don’t expect anything, there will definitely be pleasant surprises that will lift your spirits, even if the town as a whole is not very good. Same thing this time. Having read positive stories about Staraya Russa on blogs, I thought I would see something like Suzdal or at least Dmitrov here. To have some antiquities, beauty and provincial comfort and silence. Well, I was disappointed, of course. There are plenty of antiquities, but after Veliky Novgorod they no longer look good. The beauty is in a very shabby state, but there is no trace of comfort. However, regardless of my personal emotions, the weather turned out to be wonderful, the antiquities were ancient, and the beauty was beautiful, so below I present 45 photos of Staraya Russa and a story about it.

1. I’ll start, perhaps, with the good and the best, leaving the dirt for later. Perhaps you won’t even finish reading it. In Staraya Russa there are quite a decent number of ancient churches, the condition of which is quite good.
In a quiet place near the bank of the Polisti River, among Soviet five-story buildings, are the remains of the ancient Spaso-Preobrazhensky Monastery, dating back to 1192. The appearance of the monastery, as we know it, generally took shape in the 17th century, during the restoration after the Swedish-Lithuanian devastation of the Time of Troubles.
In this frame there are two churches and a bell tower from the 17th century. The bell tower is in the center, to the left of it is the dome of the Church of the Nativity of the 17th century.On the right behind the bell tower is the Transfiguration Cathedral.

3. Staraya Russa and Veliky Novgorod are an excellent illustration of the saying “the best is the enemy of the good.” Under no circumstances should you go to Russa immediately after Novgorod. There are simply no impressions left of her. Its main and only trump card is ancient temples. They make Russa, if not unique, then certainly a noticeable and worth visiting city compared to probably 90% of other cities in the country. But Novgorod will definitely be included in the remaining 10% and will not leave Russa a chance. There are many more such ancient temples there and they are much more diverse. Plus, there is a gorgeous Kremlin there. Novgorod itself is not only neater and more well-groomed (logical, given the status of the regional center), but also quieter and more comfortable (but this is already strange).
To the left of the previous complex of temples is the Sretenskaya Church of the same 17th century:

4. Another partially preserved temple of the monastery is the Church of the Starorusskaya Icon of the Mother of God. You’d just never guess that the vague building with the stylish neon sign “Sports School” is a former cathedral from 1889. It seems that it was not so badly damaged during the war, but they did not restore it, but based on it they did this. We have what we have:

5. A memorial stone was placed near it, informing about the original purpose of the building. Strange affair. If they had just demolished it, they wouldn't have touched it. And here there is such a box, and you won’t pay attention to it. And when you learn about his story, a chill runs through your body. Mangled remains are more frightening than simply being absent.

6. Next stop - Trinity Church of 1676. Everything was built after the same Lithuanian devastation, on the site of a previously existing one. In principle, if you come to Russa straight from Moscow or St. Petersburg, this church alone may well impress. Although for the Novgorod land the 17th century is not such a deep antiquity, but still this Ilmen style, these arches and vaults are fascinating. But after Veliky Novgorod, such a church simply evokes pleasant aesthetic satisfaction. Still, there is many times more of this.

7. Another typical Novgorod church is the Mines of the Martyr. This is already the 14th century, a real uncompromising antiquity. The ancient masonry made of red shell rock has been almost completely preserved. For one such touch on the history of Russet, one could forgive a certain untidiness, again, I repeat, if it were not for Novgorod, where there is more of everything ancient, and the condition is more beautiful.

10. St. George's Church of 1410 is another Old Russian antiquity. During the above-mentioned Swedish-Lithuanian devastation, she was almost not damaged. In the post-war years of the 20th century, it was the only one operating in the city. The small Annunciation Church is also adjacent to St. George's. It is also known for being the parish church of the Dostoevsky family.

11. Some unidentified wooden building next to St. George's Church. In very good condition for Russa, behind an expensive church fence. Obviously refers to the temple. Looks beautiful together with wildly blooming fruit trees:

13. Within walking distance of the Dostoevsky monument you can find another ancient church - St. Nicholas the Wonderworker, built in 1371.The bell tower was built much later - in the middle of the 18th century.During the Soviet years, the temple, restored after the war, housed a local history museum.Today the church is active, Old Believer. This fact is a little surprising. At least because in the 90s the temple was transferred to the Old Believer community, and not to the Russian Orthodox Church. And excellent condition is also not typical for churches Old Believers . They are often in a rather dilapidated state. I have only seen “brand new” Old Believer churches here, in Staraya Russa, and in St. Petersburg. This is probably due to the lack of strong financial support from the state.

14. The main symbol of the city has become, oddly enough, not one of the ancient Novgorod churches, but a very beautiful one, but still an ordinary one on a national scale, a church dating back to the very end of the 17th century (a remake, by the standards of the Novgorod region). Elegant and bright, picturesquely located on the opposite bank of the Polisti River from the main square of the city, it is not as unique as the rough and dust-soaked churches of the 14th century.

15. Taking a look at the Polist River itself, we will slowly land and move from the beautiful church architecture to the ordinary streets of Russa, to its everyday life. It is here, in LiveJournal, that beautiful and unique temples come in a row. In reality, you will have to move between them along the dusty, broken roads of Staraya Russa, past shabby old houses and dull five-story buildings. In this place, Russa, to my surprise, reminded me, only slightly ahead of him in terms of improvement. There, in the same way, in the center of the murdered city on the bank of the river there is a beautiful temple.

16. The main square of Russa is Sobornaya (until recently - Revolution) - a large asphalt rectangle, at the end of which rises a pre-revolutionary water tower:

17. It is framed by several old county houses. In particular, the recently restored building of the girls' gymnasium, in which the school is located. They would have looked much better if the area had been smaller and more comfortable. And so the proportion is not respected. For such an airfield, the houses around the perimeter must be four-story. It must be said that before the war, Cathedral Square looked much more interesting: the Germans completely destroyed the Gostiny Dvor complex (in the last frame it would have been on the left, in place of the park) and a couple of other buildings.

18. The perception of the city is negatively affected by the absence of any single concentrated old city, a cluster in which tourists would be interested in walking continuously, as in Novgorod, for example. There are about seven ancient churches scattered in different places, a separate resort, on the outskirts there is a Dostoevsky museum, and a bit of scattered civil architecture. And in the space between them there is the private sector or Khrushchev buildings. Each object as a thing in itself is interesting, but there is no general immersion in antiquity. You just drive around an ordinary post-Soviet city from one attraction to another.
Near the central square there is the obligatory Lenin:

19. There are also a couple of streets in Staraya Russa with pre-revolutionary civil buildings. She is a little loose and not very expressive here. The condition, which surprised me, is no better than in neighboring ones. Why were you surprised? Well, it seems that Russa is a well-known city, popular among tourists. There is a huge sanatorium-resort right in the city center; willy-nilly, there are always a lot of visitors. The city has a whole official tourist website on the Internet, with a rather seductive description of all its charms. In fact, Russa is the second city in the region after Novgorod in cultural and tourist terms. There is a living industry here, which means some money. And Soltsy is a small, poor and little-known town on the outskirts. However, the condition of the antiques is equally poor. In Soltsy, the merchant development seemed even more interesting. It is somehow more concentrated there and at the same time diverse.

20. Two years ago we visited two other cities in the Novgorod region - and. Both left a very pleasant impression. Now it feels like we have arrived in another Novgorod region. The beaten Soltsy and Staraya Russa have nothing in common with Valdai and Borovichi, who, of course, are poor, which can be seen with the naked eye, but are much neater and behave with dignity. One can say about them “poorly, but neatly”, “modestly, but tastefully”. You can’t say that about Russa and Soltsy. Maybe it's all about money? In Borovichi there is a powerful refractory plant that has hardly lost its agility since Soviet times and a lot of other things, in Valdai there is a branch of Gazprom. Apparently, there are still some surpluses that go towards maintaining the cities.

21. Despite the fact that Staraya Russa is a fairly popular tourist city, and also a resort, there is nowhere to eat normally. The desire may be mundane. Just arriving hungry after a long journey and exploring Soltsy, it’s hard to perceive the new city. As a result, I had to eat at a gas station. Usually Gazpromneft always came to the rescue, becoming the last stronghold if there was nowhere else to eat. But in Staraya Russa, even the food turned out to be lousy.
The house on the left served as a prototype for the house of Verkhovtseva, the heroine of Dostoevsky’s “The Brothers Karamazov”:

22. The neighborhood of the former fire station of the late 19th century (partly occupied by a cafe today) and the former Alekseevsky real school of the early 20th century (it is now a polytechnic college) looks unexpectedly beautiful:

23. In general, Staraya Russa greeted us with some completely unimaginable potholes at intersections, dust, slow and dense traffic, and Soviet houses. We almost had an accident on these holey roads and, in addition, we were unable to eat properly on the way. It took a certain concentration of internal resource not to give up on everything and force myself to look at the city impartially, to get to the ancient churches and monuments.

24. We turned the corner from the previous picture. The pedestrian path, even marked with a special sign, seems to be mockingly flooded with water. There had been no rain for three days. Where did she come from here? All these holes, ruts and puddles looked especially good against the backdrop of election posters of some local candidate. Some enemies are sitting in his headquarters, since they hung his patriotic face here. Russa is not a gift, of course, but a better place could have been found.

25. This wet path leads to the Stalinist building of the former Red Army Club:

26. Opposite it is the Museum of the North-Western Front. To the left of the museum you can see a small open area with military equipment. As can be seen from the fragmentation of the surviving old city, the war took place very strongly in Staraya Russa:

27. Some buildings seem to have survived the war, but today they are abandoned. The house shown in the photo is famous for the fact that the Soviet writer V.M. was born in it. Glinka.

29. And this house is opposite the house-museum, on the opposite bank of the Porusya River. Known as “Grushenka’s House”, named after Agrippina Menshova, a close friend of Dostoevsky, who lived there. It is believed that she served as the prototype for Grushenka Svetlova from The Brothers Karamazov. All three houses shown in the last photos are pre-revolutionary, all three appear in various sources as landmarks and all three are abandoned.

30. The famous resort of the same name stands apart in the city. The salts, the evaporation of which at one time brought growth and economic development to the city, also turned out to be medicinal. Today, the territory of the resort and its park belongs to the sanatorium, which in turn became part of the international hotel chain Amaks. Entrance to it, which was once free, was made paid several years ago, including for local residents. The price is not very high, of course I couldn’t help but go.

31. The first impression is a kind of oasis of shady alleys and beauty in the middle of a decaying city. Immediately thoughts arise about some kind of segregation, that all this beauty is only for those who pay money, and the indigenous Rushans, living in this city, do not have the opportunity to freely get there, which would be fair. However, after walking around the park and studying it in detail, you realize that they don’t have much to lose. The resort park does not fit into the role of an oasis for the rich. All the same dilapidation, the same unkemptness as in the city. Maybe on a smaller scale.

34. The Staraya Russa resort is one of the oldest in central Russia. Founded in 1828. At first, military personnel were treated here. Soonthe fame of the miraculous effects of local waters and mud quickly spread throughout the country. The sharp growth and development of the resort began after two members of the imperial family underwent treatment there. They were extremely pleased with their stay here. Since then, theater and pop stars of those years began to regularly visit the resort. The resort brought unprecedented improvement to Staraya Russa.
Mud bath building from 1958:

35. In fact, Russa became a real resort town that lived its own life, little similar to the life of the rest of the country. About the same as modern Sochi or Svetlogorsk. The resort continued to develop under communism. It became year-round; thousands of workers were treated and rested here. The war ruined everything. The Germans destroyed everything that had been created by doctors, administration and local residents for many years. A cemetery for SS officers was established on the territory of the resort park. After the war, of course, it was restored, but its former splendor cannot be returned.
Opposite the entrance to the mud baths are busts of Dobrolyubov and Gorky, who were once treated here too:

36. An interesting object has just opened opposite the sanatorium - the estate of a medieval Rushan citizen. This is a reconstruction, as you might guess, of the housing and life characteristic of these places in ancient times. They say that when creating the complex they were based on data from archaeological research. Particular attention is paid to salt making, because it was precisely this that was the basis of the economy of ancient Russia. The estate has an interactive saltworks. I can’t evaluate it myself, because... I didn’t have time to visit this wonderful museum.

It’s time for me to learn something from life’s lessons, otherwise I continue to ride the rake, expecting something from this or that place. Moreover, the formula is surprisingly simple and always works: when you expect a lot from a trip or from a city, your expectations are not met and you are left with a feeling of deep dissatisfaction. If you don’t expect anything, there will definitely be pleasant surprises that will lift your spirits, even if the town as a whole is not very good. Same thing this time. Having read positive stories about Staraya Russa on blogs, I thought I would see something like Suzdal or at least Dmitrov here. To have some antiquities, beauty and provincial comfort and silence. Well, I was disappointed, of course. There are plenty of antiquities, but after Veliky Novgorod they no longer look good. The beauty is in a very shabby state, but there is no trace of comfort. However, regardless of my personal emotions, the weather turned out to be wonderful, the antiquities were ancient, and the beauty was beautiful, so below I present 45 photos of Staraya Russa and a story about it.

1. I’ll start, perhaps, with the good and the best, leaving the dirt for later. Perhaps you won’t even finish reading it. In Staraya Russa there are quite a decent number of ancient churches, the condition of which is quite good.
In a quiet place near the bank of the Polisti River, among Soviet five-story buildings, are the remains of the ancient Spaso-Preobrazhensky Monastery, dating back to 1192. The appearance of the monastery, as we know it, generally took shape in the 17th century, during the restoration after the Swedish-Lithuanian devastation of the Time of Troubles.
In this frame there are two churches and a bell tower from the 17th century. The bell tower is in the center, to the left of it is the dome of the Church of the Nativity of the 17th century.On the right behind the bell tower is the Transfiguration Cathedral.

3. Staraya Russa and Veliky Novgorod are an excellent illustration of the saying “the best is the enemy of the good.” Under no circumstances should you go to Russa immediately after Novgorod. There are simply no impressions left of her. Its main and only trump card is ancient temples. They make Russa, if not unique, then certainly a noticeable and worth visiting city compared to probably 90% of other cities in the country. But Novgorod will definitely be included in the remaining 10% and will not leave Russa a chance. There are many more such ancient temples there and they are much more diverse. Plus, there is a gorgeous Kremlin there. Novgorod itself is not only neater and more well-groomed (logical, given the status of the regional center), but also quieter and more comfortable (but this is already strange).
To the left of the previous complex of temples is the Sretenskaya Church of the same 17th century:

4. Another partially preserved temple of the monastery is the Church of the Starorusskaya Icon of the Mother of God. You’d just never guess that the vague building with the stylish neon sign “Sports School” is a former cathedral from 1889. It seems that it was not so badly damaged during the war, but they did not restore it, but based on it they did this. We have what we have:

5. A memorial stone was placed near it, informing about the original purpose of the building. Strange affair. If they had just demolished it, they wouldn't have touched it. And here there is such a box, and you won’t pay attention to it. And when you learn about his story, a chill runs through your body. Mangled remains are more frightening than simply being absent.

6. Next stop - Trinity Church of 1676. Everything was built after the same Lithuanian devastation, on the site of a previously existing one. In principle, if you come to Russa straight from Moscow or St. Petersburg, this church alone may well impress. Although for the Novgorod land the 17th century is not such a deep antiquity, but still this Ilmen style, these arches and vaults are fascinating. But after Veliky Novgorod, such a church simply evokes pleasant aesthetic satisfaction. Still, there is many times more of this.

7. Another typical Novgorod church is the Mines of the Martyr. This is already the 14th century, a real uncompromising antiquity. The ancient masonry made of red shell rock has been almost completely preserved. For one such touch on the history of Russet, one could forgive a certain untidiness, again, I repeat, if it were not for Novgorod, where there is more of everything ancient, and the condition is more beautiful.

10. St. George's Church of 1410 is another Old Russian antiquity. During the above-mentioned Swedish-Lithuanian devastation, she was almost not damaged. In the post-war years of the 20th century, it was the only one operating in the city. The small Annunciation Church is also adjacent to St. George's. It is also known for being the parish church of the Dostoevsky family.

11. Some unidentified wooden building next to St. George's Church. In very good condition for Russa, behind an expensive church fence. Obviously refers to the temple. Looks beautiful together with wildly blooming fruit trees:

13. Within walking distance of the Dostoevsky monument you can find another ancient church - St. Nicholas the Wonderworker, built in 1371.The bell tower was built much later - in the middle of the 18th century.During the Soviet years, the temple, restored after the war, housed a local history museum.Today the church is active, Old Believer. This fact is a little surprising. At least because in the 90s the temple was transferred to the Old Believer community, and not to the Russian Orthodox Church. And excellent condition is also not typical for churches Old Believers . They are often in a rather dilapidated state. I have only seen “brand new” Old Believer churches here, in Staraya Russa, and in St. Petersburg. This is probably due to the lack of strong financial support from the state.

14. The main symbol of the city has become, oddly enough, not one of the ancient Novgorod churches, but a very beautiful one, but still an ordinary one on a national scale, a church dating back to the very end of the 17th century (a remake, by the standards of the Novgorod region). Elegant and bright, picturesquely located on the opposite bank of the Polisti River from the main square of the city, it is not as unique as the rough and dust-soaked churches of the 14th century.

15. Taking a look at the Polist River itself, we will slowly land and move from the beautiful church architecture to the ordinary streets of Russa, to its everyday life. It is here, in LiveJournal, that beautiful and unique temples come in a row. In reality, you will have to move between them along the dusty, broken roads of Staraya Russa, past shabby old houses and dull five-story buildings. In this place, Russa, to my surprise, reminded me, only slightly ahead of him in terms of improvement. There, in the same way, in the center of the murdered city on the bank of the river there is a beautiful temple.

16. The main square of Russa is Sobornaya (until recently - Revolution) - a large asphalt rectangle, at the end of which rises a pre-revolutionary water tower:

17. It is framed by several old county houses. In particular, the recently restored building of the girls' gymnasium, in which the school is located. They would have looked much better if the area had been smaller and more comfortable. And so the proportion is not respected. For such an airfield, the houses around the perimeter must be four-story. It must be said that before the war, Cathedral Square looked much more interesting: the Germans completely destroyed the Gostiny Dvor complex (in the last frame it would have been on the left, in place of the park) and a couple of other buildings.

18. The perception of the city is negatively affected by the absence of any single concentrated old city, a cluster in which tourists would be interested in walking continuously, as in Novgorod, for example. There are about seven ancient churches scattered in different places, a separate resort, on the outskirts there is a Dostoevsky museum, and a bit of scattered civil architecture. And in the space between them there is the private sector or Khrushchev buildings. Each object as a thing in itself is interesting, but there is no general immersion in antiquity. You just drive around an ordinary post-Soviet city from one attraction to another.
Near the central square there is the obligatory Lenin:

19. There are also a couple of streets in Staraya Russa with pre-revolutionary civil buildings. She is a little loose and not very expressive here. The condition, which surprised me, is no better than in neighboring ones. Why were you surprised? Well, it seems that Russa is a well-known city, popular among tourists. There is a huge sanatorium-resort right in the city center; willy-nilly, there are always a lot of visitors. The city has a whole official tourist website on the Internet, with a rather seductive description of all its charms. In fact, Russa is the second city in the region after Novgorod in cultural and tourist terms. There is a living industry here, which means some money. And Soltsy is a small, poor and little-known town on the outskirts. However, the condition of the antiques is equally poor. In Soltsy, the merchant development seemed even more interesting. It is somehow more concentrated there and at the same time diverse.

20. Two years ago we visited two other cities in the Novgorod region - and. Both left a very pleasant impression. Now it feels like we have arrived in another Novgorod region. The beaten Soltsy and Staraya Russa have nothing in common with Valdai and Borovichi, who, of course, are poor, which can be seen with the naked eye, but are much neater and behave with dignity. One can say about them “poorly, but neatly”, “modestly, but tastefully”. You can’t say that about Russa and Soltsy. Maybe it's all about money? In Borovichi there is a powerful refractory plant that has hardly lost its agility since Soviet times and a lot of other things, in Valdai there is a branch of Gazprom. Apparently, there are still some surpluses that go towards maintaining the cities.

21. Despite the fact that Staraya Russa is a fairly popular tourist city, and also a resort, there is nowhere to eat normally. The desire may be mundane. Just arriving hungry after a long journey and exploring Soltsy, it’s hard to perceive the new city. As a result, I had to eat at a gas station. Usually Gazpromneft always came to the rescue, becoming the last stronghold if there was nowhere else to eat. But in Staraya Russa, even the food turned out to be lousy.
The house on the left served as a prototype for the house of Verkhovtseva, the heroine of Dostoevsky’s “The Brothers Karamazov”:

22. The neighborhood of the former fire station of the late 19th century (partly occupied by a cafe today) and the former Alekseevsky real school of the early 20th century (it is now a polytechnic college) looks unexpectedly beautiful:

23. In general, Staraya Russa greeted us with some completely unimaginable potholes at intersections, dust, slow and dense traffic, and Soviet houses. We almost had an accident on these holey roads and, in addition, we were unable to eat properly on the way. It took a certain concentration of internal resource not to give up on everything and force myself to look at the city impartially, to get to the ancient churches and monuments.

24. We turned the corner from the previous picture. The pedestrian path, even marked with a special sign, seems to be mockingly flooded with water. There had been no rain for three days. Where did she come from here? All these holes, ruts and puddles looked especially good against the backdrop of election posters of some local candidate. Some enemies are sitting in his headquarters, since they hung his patriotic face here. Russa is not a gift, of course, but a better place could have been found.

25. This wet path leads to the Stalinist building of the former Red Army Club:

26. Opposite it is the Museum of the North-Western Front. To the left of the museum you can see a small open area with military equipment. As can be seen from the fragmentation of the surviving old city, the war took place very strongly in Staraya Russa:

27. Some buildings seem to have survived the war, but today they are abandoned. The house shown in the photo is famous for the fact that the Soviet writer V.M. was born in it. Glinka.

29. And this house is opposite the house-museum, on the opposite bank of the Porusya River. Known as “Grushenka’s House”, named after Agrippina Menshova, a close friend of Dostoevsky, who lived there. It is believed that she served as the prototype for Grushenka Svetlova from The Brothers Karamazov. All three houses shown in the last photos are pre-revolutionary, all three appear in various sources as landmarks and all three are abandoned.

30. The famous resort of the same name stands apart in the city. The salts, the evaporation of which at one time brought growth and economic development to the city, also turned out to be medicinal. Today, the territory of the resort and its park belongs to the sanatorium, which in turn became part of the international hotel chain Amaks. Entrance to it, which was once free, was made paid several years ago, including for local residents. The price is not very high, of course I couldn’t help but go.

31. The first impression is a kind of oasis of shady alleys and beauty in the middle of a decaying city. Immediately thoughts arise about some kind of segregation, that all this beauty is only for those who pay money, and the indigenous Rushans, living in this city, do not have the opportunity to freely get there, which would be fair. However, after walking around the park and studying it in detail, you realize that they don’t have much to lose. The resort park does not fit into the role of an oasis for the rich. All the same dilapidation, the same unkemptness as in the city. Maybe on a smaller scale.

34. The Staraya Russa resort is one of the oldest in central Russia. Founded in 1828. At first, military personnel were treated here. Soonthe fame of the miraculous effects of local waters and mud quickly spread throughout the country. The sharp growth and development of the resort began after two members of the imperial family underwent treatment there. They were extremely pleased with their stay here. Since then, theater and pop stars of those years began to regularly visit the resort. The resort brought unprecedented improvement to Staraya Russa.
Mud bath building from 1958:

35. In fact, Russa became a real resort town that lived its own life, little similar to the life of the rest of the country. About the same as modern Sochi or Svetlogorsk. The resort continued to develop under communism. It became year-round; thousands of workers were treated and rested here. The war ruined everything. The Germans destroyed everything that had been created by doctors, administration and local residents for many years. A cemetery for SS officers was established on the territory of the resort park. After the war, of course, it was restored, but its former splendor cannot be returned.
Opposite the entrance to the mud baths are busts of Dobrolyubov and Gorky, who were once treated here too:

36. An interesting object has just opened opposite the sanatorium - the estate of a medieval Rushan citizen. This is a reconstruction, as you might guess, of the housing and life characteristic of these places in ancient times. They say that when creating the complex they were based on data from archaeological research. Particular attention is paid to salt making, because it was precisely this that was the basis of the economy of ancient Russia. The estate has an interactive saltworks. I can’t evaluate it myself, because... I didn’t have time to visit this wonderful museum.

The small but very ancient town of Staraya Russa, in my opinion, is unreasonably deprived of the attention of tourists, and in vain. Not inferior in beauty to most of the “souvenir” cities of the Golden Ring, it is very nice and quiet.

Staraya Russa is an ancient city, literally several years younger than Moscow. Today I propose to take a walk through this architectural pearl of the Novgorod region.

The main problem of Staraya Russa is its relative inaccessibility to transport. The city is located far from major transport routes, and almost the only convenient option to get to it from Moscow is by rail. In addition, Russa is located quite far from large regional centers, which, taking into account the actual schedule of local transport, does not allow you to go there “in one day” from Novgorod or Pskov, popular among tourists. However, the city is quite small and is perfectly oriented for visiting “one day”, which is what was done.

The development of the city center is typical for provincial cities with a long history - 1-2-3-storey stone houses with sloping roofs. The central square here is decorated with a hundred-year-old water tower

A typical house in the city center might look something like this

Closer to the outskirts, the city’s development is more reminiscent of a wealthy village

Surprisingly, the central bridge of the city is still paved... with boards, not only on the sidewalks, but also on the roadway

True, there are also several “modern” areas in Staraya Russa, built up 30-50 years ago. For Staraya Russa, consider new buildings...

The city authorities honor the history of the city and instill a love for it in the townspeople, and with rather unusual tools - tablet stones.

The main event of the last 150 years in the city is the departure of exile in these places by F. Dostoevsky. By the way, he has a very nice house-museum here, which we will talk about later.

A lot here reminds us of F. Dostoevsky

But most of all, the city has very beautiful churches of a wide variety of architectural styles. One of the most beautiful cathedrals in the city - the recently renovated Resurrection Cathedral, 17th century

The bell tower of the cathedral, of course, is 2 times younger, but it looks very organic with it

But it looks best from the Polist River...

And the reflection of its waters, of course.

On a fine day the river provides excellent scenery

In the southern part of the city the churches are older

The oldest surviving buildings in the city are the ensemble of the Spaso-Preobrazhensky Monastery.

Now the monastery houses the city museum of local lore.

But the outside of the temples has been restored quite well.

Here is a map of the city as it was in the time of Dostoevsky.

Near the monastery lives a large colony of stray cats, the leader of which is a fiery red male named Chubais. Like his namesake, for 10-15 minutes he reviewed the results of the privatization of some scraps simultaneously with 3-4 of his fellow tribesmen, wagging his tail threateningly.

Among the monuments, one cannot fail to note the “Eagle” stela in memory of the Russian soldiers killed in the Russo-Japanese War.

Two steps from the "Eagle" right on the street there is a small exhibition of equipment from the times of the Great Patriotic War.

Bulletin boards are protected from unauthorized posting by a simple grille.

In Soviet times, the temple, of course, was used as a warehouse, which is why there are no original paintings left in it. And there are not many parishioners at all.

There are interesting inscriptions in the city. I still don’t understand who the anti-antifa are. A fighting squad of local nationalists or what?

And the Coward, and the Dunce, and the Seasoned...

And Marx, and Engels, and Bender...

And even characters from Star Wars and Soviet fairy tales.

Moreover, there is a reason to drink. A nomadic sale has come to town!