Rostov the Great is the oldest Russian city. Archaeologists on the shores of Lake Nero have found evidence of ancient Neolithic settlements. That is why the exact year of foundation of the great Rostov is impossible to establish. The first people settled there several millennia ago. Naturally, they were all pagans, their many temples are talking about it. The year of the first mention of the city of Rostov the Great is not so far away. The Tale of Bygone Years indicates the 862th, and already in 991, Orthodoxy came to the inhabitants of Rostov.
Christian center in the north-east of Russia
From here, Christianity quickly spread to the nearest cities and villages, despite the fact that paganism resisted innovation for a very long time. Even eighty years later, ascetics died in the Rostov lands for a new religion. Thus, Bishop Leonty was killed by the pagans in 1071. In addition to the religious, Rostov the Great, whose population defended inner Russia for many years from invasions of enemies from the east and north, served as the economic and political center of the Principality of Kiev. It was from there that the rulers came to Rostov - the sons of the Kiev princes.
The foundation year of the great Rostov is unknown to us, but the countdown is from the first mention in the "Tale of Bygone Years". And on the city's day in 2012, the 1150th anniversary of the Golden Ring pearl was celebrated. They remembered the famous princes who added glory to the city. The sons of St. Vladimir, the baptist of Russia, also ruled here. This is the glorious Yaroslav the Wise, who was later killed by Svyatopolk the Accursed, and Prince Boris, who, together with his brother Gleb, the prince of Murom, became the first saints. The city of Rostov the Great has seen many glorious people over its long life - both great warriors and great criminals.
From Yaroslav the Wise to Andrei Bogolyubsky
The son of Yaroslav Vsevolod, Prince of Kiev, gave Rostov land to his son, Vladimir Monomakh. Then Yuri Dolgoruky ruled here , from which the city of Rostov the Great passed into the possession of Prince Andrei Bogolyubsky, famous for his righteous life. Everything would be fine, but the prince did not live here. Despite the fact that the year the great Rostov was founded was much earlier, Andrei moved the capital from Rostov to Vladimir. Residents of the city were offended to the extreme: why not make Rostov equal to Kiev and not Vladimir? Moreover, already under Yuri Dolgoruky Rostov everywhere began to be called the Great. And also multinational and glorious - all annals are full of epithets.
Offended by the boyars and plotted bad. Woven around Andrei Bogolyubsky, an evil and bloody conspiracy. Apparently, it was impossible to do so. Very soon, the new cities of Rostov and Novgorod outgrew their great brothers. And today, the old cities are significantly inferior in terms of population, area, and development to new ones - Nizhny Novgorod and Rostov-on-Don. Probably the Lord punished. However, in those days the history of Rostov the Great was really glorious, and he bore his title more than deservedly. It was at that time the largest Russian city, located on an area of two hundred hectares.
Thirteenth century
The year of foundation of the great Rostov was far behind, when in terms of population and area it grew so much that it was second only to Kiev and Novgorod. After the brutal murder of Andrei Bogolyubsky in 1174, the inhabitants elected the prince of Novgorod as their ruler, but Mstislav was not destined to take the great city under his wing.
Andrei's brother Mikhail ruled for some time, and then Vsevolod the Big Nest reigned in Rostov and held out on the princely throne until 1212. Then there was a long and bloody lawsuit between his sons, even a small war happened, in which Constantine defeated and went to rule in the capital Vladimir, and Rostov accepted Yuri defeated by him.
Two heroes
After the death of Constantine, his son Vasilko sat on the throne of Rostov. Both of them - Yuri and Vasilko - were glorious fighters and very beloved by all their subjects. Both of them died on the same day in March 1238 in a battle with the temnik Batu Burundai. Yuri was beheaded, and Vasilko was captured, but not for long. He refused to serve the Tatars and was executed.
These princes added to the list of saints who shone in the Russian land. I must say that during their reign in the thirteenth century, this land literally flourished: the monasteries of Rostov the Great were erected, construction was in full swing. The white stone Assumption Cathedral, which the city is still proud of, was completed by Prince Vasilko.
Scribes and warriors
Even under Constantine, who was honored with the title of the Wise for his love of art, for his knowledge, for much reading, for the construction of churches, public education began in Russia. In 1204, the Grigoryevsky Lock was founded - a religious school, the first in Russia. Bishop Cyril patronized the books: he made eleven parchment codes, which we were lucky to see. The chronicle of 862 was not the only one mentioning the city of Rostov.
And the Tatars continued their raids. Many times the Rostov army perished in battles almost completely. In such cases, the city could not resist the invaders, and therefore it was not so often burned and ruined. Nevertheless, even in the most terrible times of the Tatar-Mongol yoke, the construction of the city continued, the annals were filled. However, the inhabitants of Rostov never completely obeyed anyone. Repeatedly occurred in the city of rebellion against the rule of the Tatars. Once in 1320, Ivan Kalita, the Prince of Moscow, brutally crushed one of them. The boyars were completely ruined. Then the parents of St. Sergius were forced to move from their hometown to the town of Radonezh.
Feuds and wars
For two centuries in a row - the fourteenth and fifteenth - the fragmentation of the Rostov principality continued, for this reason the political significance of the great city was increasingly declining. In 1328, even the city itself was divided into two parts between the great-grandchildren of Prince Constantine. The Sretensky part was immediately subordinated to Moscow, and the Borisoglebskaya part was bought back by Moscow in more than a hundred years by Ivan III. The Battle of Kulikovo called on all Russian people. The center of Rostov the Great did not stand aside.
The Rostov squad stood under the banner of Dmitry Donskoy. Two Rostov princesses participated in this battle and heroically died - Daria Rostovskaya and Antonina Puzhbolskaya. They are buried in Rostov near the princely court, where subsequently the nephew of Sergius of Radonezh, Archbishop Theodore, founded the Nativity Monastery. The description of Rostov the Great of those years suggests that a good geographical location still left this city at the center of trade routes - from here there were roads to the White Sea, and in the sixteenth century England opened a sales office in Rostov.
From politics to Orthodoxy
But Rostov the Great was increasingly estranged from political life. At the same time, its influence in the church life of the country grew and expanded. In the fourteenth century, local bishops began to be called archbishops, and in 1589 a metropolis was created here. Time of Troubles brought incredible suffering to the city. The earthen fortress, which surrounded the center of Rostov the Great, had just begun to rebuild, the work was very far from over, and the city was unprotected.
The Rostovs and Poles nevertheless entered the battle, and it was extremely unequal; the chances of success were practically nil. Defenders of the city, the wounded and civilians who survived, took refuge in the Assumption Cathedral. Enemies went out to persuade Metropolitan Filaret (Romanov, father of the future sovereign Mikhail Fedorovich). But the enemies of the shelters were killed, not sparing anyone. They devastated the temple itself and the whole city, captured the metropolitan and took him to the impostor False Dmitry - the Tushino thief. However, the occupier liked Filaret, and he was granted the title of patriarch.
When the Romanovs
When the Poles and the Lithuanians retreated home, Rostov gradually began to recover and, first of all, continued the construction of fortifications. The earthen ramparts that surrounded the city from all sides represented a star with nine rays. Many buildings during the construction process were demolished, even temples. However, this sacrifice was in vain - more than Rostov did not have to defend himself against the enemy. And the fortress greatly influenced the further development of the city, which took place two centuries in a row - the eighteenth and nineteenth.
The year of the first mention of the city of Rostov the Great was a thousand years away, and during this time the independence of the former administrative center has gone. However, Rostov did not turn into a backwater. This was influenced by the oldest metropolitan department in Russia, the activities of Jonah III, Metropolitan of Rostov from 1652 to 1690, the reform of Patriarch Nikon and the schism of the Orthodox Church. Jonah took the blessing of Nikon, so he fell into disgrace from Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich. At this time, he erected the Rostov Kremlin, all the towers of the Metropolitan Courtyard, updated many temples. But Jonah became best known for thanks to the famous Rostov bells: it sounded bells, the sounds of which surprised the Orthodox people.
Saint Demetrius
Another prominent church figure in Rostov the Great, Demetrius of Rostov, ranked among the saints, was Metropolitan for only seven years, but managed to go down in the history of the state in many important matters. The deepest trace was left by his spiritual works, which were preserved in a multitude. His main religious work was the "Lives of Minei" - the lives of Russian Orthodox saints. In 1757, St. Demetrius was counted among the saints. His relics can be worshiped at the Spaso-Yakovlevsky Monastery of Rostov the Great.
The status of the city, meanwhile, was changing. When independence as a capital was finally lost, governors ruled in Rostov and sent here from Moscow. In 1692, the city was attributed to the Yaroslavl Voivodeship, and at the beginning of the eighteenth century it was transferred to the Pereslavl province. In 1777, Rostov the Great was given the status of the county town of Yaroslavl governorship, and ten years later he was deprived of the metropolitan’s chair, as it was transferred to Yaroslavl. And until now, the beautiful Rostov the Great lives in a simple regional center of the Yaroslavl region.
sights
Now it is a city with a population of just over forty thousand people. His status is still the same - the city-museum and the pearl of the Golden Ring of Russian cities. What do tourists first of all want to see? Of course, the Rostov Kremlin, the Metropolitan Yard - the main attraction of this city. All residents of our country saw a film about Ivan Vasilyevich, who is changing his profession. So, there is no person who did not see the Rostov Kremlin from different angles, because the shooting was carried out there. When the city lost its metropolitan pulpit, the Kremlin began to decline, and the public of Rostov the Great restored all buildings in the nineteenth century, renovated and restored. In 1883, the Museum of Church Antiquities opened in the Kremlin.
The oldest building and one of the most beautiful places is the Assumption Cathedral on Cathedral Square. It has been perfectly preserved to this day since 991. Of course, he was rebuilt several times by Andrei Bogolyubsky, and Konstantin the Wise, and Prince Vasilkov. Today's building was erected in 1508. This is the main temple of the city, the tomb of the Rostov princes and all its bishops. Here Prince Vasilko and Metropolitan Jonah rested.
Kremlin
The towers and walls of the Kremlin were also erected much later than the year of their first mention in the annals. It was already the seventeenth century, when Metropolitan Jonah was engaged in the city. The famous Rostov belfry was also erected by him. The main bell weighs thirty-two tons! Monasteries of Rostov the Great deserve a separate word. First of all, it is the Dimitriy Spaso-Yakovlevsky Monastery and, of course, the equally famous Abrahamiev Monastery. The first was consecrated in 1386 with the Church of the Conception of St. Anne. In the Time of Troubles, the monastery was completely devastated, and Metropolitan Jonah restored it again.
Already in 1780, it was surrounded by stone walls, and the Dimitrievsky temple was built on a donation from Count Sheremetyev. Tourists see this monastery already at the entrance to Rostov the Great from Moscow. The second is the Epiphany Avraamiev Monastery - an ancient attraction, which not only Rostov, but also the whole of Northeastern Russia is proud of. It was founded in the ninth century by the Rev. Abraham, who defeated the pagan Veles with the help of a rod received by the Russian church from John the Evangelist himself. Ivan the Terrible took this rod with him on a campaign in Kazan and won. In honor of this event, the Epiphany Cathedral was erected on the territory of the monastery in 1555.
Coat of arms of Rostov the Great
Until the seventeenth century, the symbol of Rostov was a bird, which can be seen on the Great Seal of Ivan the Terrible of the sixteenth century. The sovereign had twenty-four seals of Russian lands and cities, among which was Rostov. It was an eagle that turned its head to the right.
The symbol and coat of arms of Rostov at the beginning of the seventeenth century was the deer in the scarlet field. The deer ("elenya"), embroidered on the patron saint of sovereign Mikhail Fedorovich, had a golden mane or such a collar, golden hooves and horns. Until now, this image is a symbol of the city of Rostov the Great.