Vologda [antikvár]

The Russian North is a land of broad river s, clear lakes and dense for est s, a land ofcharming wooden buildings and stone ensembles. The North has preserved in an excellent state the artistic relies ofthe distant and comparatively recent past. Vologda holds a place of its ozon in the history of the North and its artistic culture. For several centuries Vologda was the centre of an extensive région. At the same time it maintained constant relations with other prominent Russian cities such as Novgorod and Moscow. This left an inimitable imprint on local artistic culture. Graduallyi at first in the churches and the monasteries, and then in the local muséums, splendid collections of works of art both of purely northern and of metropolitan origin were built up. Vologda is fascinating not only in its monuments of art and architecture, but also in its overall inimitable aspect. No one coming to Vologda can help being impressed by the broad streets lined with birches and wild rose bushes, or the central districts of wooden two-storey houses with their fanciful architecture. A slow-flowing river runs through the city. Its limpid watersy broad bends, green banks give the city of Vologda its air of intimacy and sweet picturesqueness. 1. VOLOGDA. ITS HISTORY AND ARCHITECTURAL MASTERPIECES Vologda is one of the few northern cities whose history goes back to the pre-Mongol period. The approximate date of its foundation was 1147 when, according to the Life of St. Gerasimus (the local saint), Vologda's first monastery—the Troitsky—was founded. The Life, which was written not earlier than the seventeenth century, claimed that Vologda did not exist before 1147 and that Gerasimus came there to "the great forest". But this fact is very doubtful because before the fourteenth century Russian monasteries were usually founded in or near cities. So one can assume that even prior to that year there was a settlement in the neighbourhood. The archaeological excavations carried out near the former Troitsky Monastery showed1 that in the twelfth and thir-teenth centuries there was in fact an ancient settlement which in time grew into a size-able town. Vologda attracted the attention of its neighbours very early. In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries there was a bitter fight for the possession of the city between Novgorod and the grand princes of north-eastern Rus. The first reliable mention of Vologda is in the deed of 1264 which defined the relationships between the city of Novgorod and Yaroslav Yaroslavich,2 Grand Prince of Tver. Here Vologda is referred to as a volost or rural district of Novgorod. Various fourteenth and fifteenth century sources refer to the numerous campaigns of the princes of Tver and Moscow against Vologda in the attempt to oust the Novgorodians from Vologda, while the Novgorodians in their turn made every attempt to counter the influence of Tver and especially of Moscow on their northern provinces. For a considérable period the city was a real bone of contention. It was only in the fifteenth century that Vologda finally yielded to Moscow. The desire to subordinate Vologda was due to the city's favourable geographical position. It occupied a key position on the approaches to the immensely rich North. Situated comparatively close to Moscow and Novgorod, Vologda was also connected by water-ways with the northern sea coast. The River Vologda, on the banks of which the city stands, discharges into the Sukhona, a tributary ofthe Northern Dvina—the main artery of the North. Vologda was a trans-shipping point for ail goods brought from the north to the south and vice versa. Enterprising traders brought furs, sait, fish, wax, and hemp to the city, bought quantities of flax and hides there and then sent off large caravans of merchandise to Moscow, Rostov, Yaroslavl, Kostroma and other Russian cities. Vologda was an important city from the stratégie point of view. It served as an assembly point for troops, for example, when Moscow contemplated a campaign against the