Ipatievskaya Sloboda, aka Kostroma, is a landscape and architectural-ethnographic museum-reserve in the open. It is located near the Holy Trinity Ipatiev Monastery in the suburbs of Kostroma. It is one of the main attractions of the city.
Description
Ipatievskaya Sloboda is located on the right bank of the Kostroma River in a historic urban area known as Zakostromka. It is located on the lands around the famous Ipatiev Monastery.
The ethnomuseum contains samples of wooden architecture typical of this region. At several sites housed a church, streets with old houses, mills, outbuildings.
Exposition basis
On May 3, 1960, it was decided to create a museum of folk wooden architecture in the Kostroma region. The official document became the starting point for the existence of a new open air ethnomuseum, known today as the Kostroma (Ipatiev) settlement near the Kostroma River.
The history of its formation began long before that - with the transportation of the first monuments of folk architecture to the New Courtyard of the Ipatiev Monastery, on the territory and buildings of which there was then a historical and architectural museum-reserve.
Relocation of wooden architecture monuments was planned in the residential area of the Theological settlement near the Ipatiev Monastery. So, on the bank of the Kostroma river, among the suburban buildings, three remarkable works of folk architecture appeared: the Church of the Cathedral of the Blessed Virgin Mary from the village of Holm in the Galichsky District, the house of A.E. Ershov from the village of Portyug in the Mezhevsky District and the barn from the village of Pustyn in the Kostroma District, which was later transferred to the territory Architectural and Ethnographic Museum.
Further development
In 1968, a plot of land was transferred to the organization, outside the Ipatiev Monastery, on Strelka - at the confluence of the Kostroma River into the Volga. Now this is the main exhibition complex of the architectural and ethnographic museum, which contains monuments of wooden architecture of various types:
- temple buildings (two churches and three chapels);
- residential buildings (eight log huts);
- household buildings (windmills, baths, barns, barn, forge).
The buildings were transported to Ipatievskaya Sloboda and put on the banks of the small Igumenka River, which flows into the Kostroma River, into the system of a recreated village street, as a series of separate architectural monuments, each of which impresses with its expressiveness and unique original character.
Ipatiev Monastery
Holy Trinity Ipatiev Monastery in Kostroma, on the basis of which the museum-reserve operates, is an outstanding example of Russian national architecture. The founding date of the monastery is unknown, and the first written records date back to 1432.
It consists of two "towns": Old and New. The complex is well protected by a high wall, on the sides of which there are towers with loopholes. The central place is occupied by the Trinity Cathedral with gilded domes. Nearby is the belfry. The male monastery played an important unifying role during the Time of Troubles.
Church of the Cathedral of the Blessed Virgin Mary
Ipatievskaya Sloboda and the monastery sheltered many wonderful ancient buildings. One of them is a unique historical monument, the oldest in the Kostroma region, the Cathedral Church of Ave. Virgin Mary built in 1552.
It represents the original features of the regional architectural tradition. Its oldest part is the octal foot cut down in the 16th century and crowned already in the 18th century with an elegant five-domed foot on a baptized barrel. Tradition dates the construction of the temple during the reign of Ivan the Terrible.
Ershov House
The first residential building of the Ipatievskaya Sloboda in Kostroma was the house of A.E. Ershov from the village of Portyug, which is part of a large estate. The museum-reserve presents a complex of a summer hut, chamberlain and hermitage, united by a wide corridor-bridge. The buildings date back to 1860. In architectural terms, it is a traditional housing characteristic of the northern regions.
The house stands on a high basement, equipped with small windows and shutters. In the hut are:
- wide sunsets;
- tall stringer;
- Russian stove;
- benches along the walls.
The living quarters are so spacious that up to 15 family members could live in them.
Church of the Transfiguration
In the 1950s, four baths on stilts and a wonderful example of temple architecture - the Church of the Transfiguration from the village of Spas-Vezha in the Kostroma region were transported to Ipatievskaya Sloboda. Unfortunately, the 2002 fire severely damaged this unique monument, but the hope of its restoration did not die out.
The pearl of architecture, being the only extant temple structure on stilts, was an outstanding attraction of the whole Kostroma region. It is known that the church was cut down by the Yaroslavl carpenters brothers Muliev in 1713. The cage-type temple with a five-sided altar and a gallery, covering the refectory and the central four, is installed on 24 oak piles.
House Chapygina
What to see in Kostroma yet? Not far from Kostroma is the ancient city of Nerekhta. The house of Ye. P. Chapygina of the beginning of the 20th century from the village of Bolshoy Andreikovo was transported from the Nerekht district. A small log hut built of thin logs is covered with a cantilevered roof instead of the original thatched one. A farmyard with an elongated slope of the roof, attached to its side wall, could accommodate several goats or sheep. The residential part consists of a cramped cottage and a tiny unheated stove or gland. They are separated by a "bridge", from which there is a passage to the farmyard.
In a small hut, ethnographers lovingly recreated the modest life of the villagers. Today, tourists can see how the housewives drowned the stove, prepared food, looked after cattle, spun and wove a cloth. The owners got along with bast shoes, weaved baskets, were engaged in carpentry and agricultural work.
Tarasov House
Further along the path there is a large log hut, put on two feet, from the Vohomsky district. The construction consists of several rooms: a hut, a chamber, an oil chamber, a closet, a courtyard, a bridge-corridor. The yard is arranged on two floors: on the first floor there is a crib for animals; the second tier (povit) is littered with hay, and household utensils are also stored here. Next to the hut there is a granary - a barn for storing grain. The manor is fenced with a high girder (fence) with massive strong gates.
K.S. Tarasov’s house from the village of Mukhino, Vokhomsky district, is a remarkable, one of a kind, monument in the Ipatievskaya Sloboda. This is a traditional northern hut with a black firebox. Often such buildings were called "black tubes." In the hut there is an adobe furnace, above it there is a hole, which is covered with a wooden bolt. Part of the smoke went into this hole, part of it spread along the hut. Soot and soot settled on the ceiling and walls. Low lintels of the doorway and high thresholds reliably stored heat. To keep clean, the ceilings were swept every Saturday, and the walls and floor were scraped and washed.
Barn
Now you can’t meet such a usual construction in the past for the village, where sheaves of grain crops were dried. In Ipatievskaya Sloboda, a pig from the Pustyn village of the Sharyinsky district found its place, a unique monument of rural life.
These structures are fire hazardous, therefore they were set apart from the houses. They were drowned in late autumn, kindled fire in a pit under a hut chopped to its wall. The hosts made sure that the fire burned strongly, evenly, supplying heat to the upper part of the barn, where sheafs of grain were laid on the grates for drying. In the morning they were threshed. The released grain was screened and poured into the barn grains. As necessary, they drove to the mill to grind on flour or cereal.
Mills
Wooden windmills are wonderful buildings that were an indispensable element of the Russian countryside landscape. Today, beautiful, light, slender buildings have completely disappeared from modern rural life and are now preserved only in open-air museums as worthy monuments of folk art. In the museum "Kostroma (Ipatiev) Sloboda" the windmill-columns were transported from the villages of Razlivnoye and Germanov Pochinok of the Soligalichsky district.
In the center of the structure there is a fixed pillar, deeply dug into the ground, around which on special supports, inclined to the center, a small barn (cage) with mill equipment turns its wings to the wind. A horizontal shaft is inserted into the front wall of the barn, on which the wings are mounted, which drive the millstones and mill pestles.
Another type of windmills are the so-called tent mills. They are characterized by the inclination of the walls to the upper part of the main volume. In the “tent” only the upper part of the mill structure rotates. A tent-type mill was transported to Kostroma from the village of Spas in the Nerekht district.
Reviews
Ipatievskaya Sloboda is a significant attraction not only of Kostroma, but of the entire Upper Volga. Tourists highly appreciate the organizational activities of the museum and the presented exposition, calling it one of the best in the country. Often the complex is visited as part of group tours, however, the allocated time is not always enough. It is much more interesting to devote a day to the study of the museum-reserve. During this time, you can slowly walk around the exhibits, have a snack and relax under the canopy of trees.
What to see in Kostroma, in addition to the settlement:
- Located next to the Ipatiev Monastery.
- WRC "Terem Snegurochki".
- The embankment.
- Fire Tower
- Trading rows of the XVIII-XIX centuries.
- Epiphany Anastasin Monastery.
- Museum of Flax and Birch Bark.
- Kostroma State Art and Historical and Architectural Museum.
Of course, this is only a fraction of what a beautiful old city on the Volga has to offer.