Kirzhach
Encyclopedia
Kirzhach River
The Kirzhach River is a river in the Vladimir Oblast in Russia, a left tributary of the Klyazma River. The length of the river is 133 km. The area of its drainage basin is 1820 km². The Kirzhach River originates at the confluence of the Bolshoi Kirzhach River and the Maly Kirzhach River near...
in Vladimir Oblast
Vladimir Oblast
Vladimir Oblast is a federal subject of Russia . Its administrative center is the city of Vladimir, which is located east of Moscow...
, Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
, located in the western of the oblast
Oblast
Oblast is a type of administrative division in Slavic countries, including some countries of the former Soviet Union. The word "oblast" is a loanword in English, but it is nevertheless often translated as "area", "zone", "province", or "region"...
, 125 kilometres (77.7 mi) west of Vladimir
Vladimir
Vladimir is a city and the administrative center of Vladimir Oblast, Russia, located on the Klyazma River, to the east of Moscow along the M7 motorway. Population:...
and 29 kilometres (18 mi) south of Alexandrov. Population:
History
The town was established in the 14th century as a slobodaSloboda
Sloboda was a kind of settlement in the history of Russia, Belarus and Ukraine. The name is derived from the early Slavic word for "freedom" and may be vaguely translated as "free settlement"....
assigned to the Annunciation Monastery. The latter was established by Saint Sergius of Radonezh
Sergius of Radonezh
Venerable Sergius of Radonezh , also transliterated as Sergey Radonezhsky or Serge of Radonezh, was a spiritual leader and monastic reformer of medieval Russia. Together with Venerable Seraphim of Sarov, he is one of the Russian Orthodox Church's most highly venerated saints.-Early life:The date of...
, who lived in the area between 1354 and 1358. For most of its history, the abbey remained heavily dependent upon the Troitse-Sergiyeva Lavra
Troitse-Sergiyeva Lavra
The Trinity Lavra of St. Sergius is the most important Russian monastery and the spiritual centre of the Russian Orthodox Church. The monastery is situated in the town of Sergiyev Posad, about 70 km to the north-east from Moscow by the road leading to Yaroslavl, and currently is home to...
, which lies 48 kilometres (29.8 mi) to the west.
The diminutive monastery cathedral, erected during the reign of Ivan the Terrible
Ivan IV of Russia
Ivan IV Vasilyevich , known in English as Ivan the Terrible , was Grand Prince of Moscow from 1533 until his death. His long reign saw the conquest of the Khanates of Kazan, Astrakhan, and Siberia, transforming Russia into a multiethnic and multiconfessional state spanning almost one billion acres,...
, conforms to the early Muscovite type of cathedral church. It is commonly regarded as one of the last and loveliest specimens of this conservative strain (picture). An open gallery connects the cathedral with the nearby Saviour church, which has a square tower and a tent-like belfry
Bell tower
A bell tower is a tower which contains one or more bells, or which is designed to hold bells, even if it has none. In the European tradition, such a tower most commonly serves as part of a church and contains church bells. When attached to a city hall or other civic building, especially in...
. This church, commissioned by the Miloslavsky
Maria Miloslavskaya
Maria Ilyinichna Miloslavskaya was the first wife of tsar Alexis of Russia and mother of the tsars Feodor III of Russia and Ivan V of Russia, as well as regent princess Sophia Alekseyevna.-Biography:...
boyar
Boyar
A boyar, or bolyar , was a member of the highest rank of the feudal Moscovian, Kievan Rus'ian, Bulgarian, Wallachian, and Moldavian aristocracies, second only to the ruling princes , from the 10th century through the 17th century....
s in 1656, contains their family sepulchre
Sepulchre
The rock-cut tombs in ancient Israel are a group of hundreds of rock-cut tombs constructed in Israel in ancient times. They were cut into the rock, sometimes with elaborate facades and multiple burial chambers. Some are free-standing, but most are caves. Each tomb typically belonged to a...
. The 16th-century refectory
Refectory
A refectory is a dining room, especially in monasteries, boarding schools and academic institutions. One of the places the term is most often used today is in graduate seminaries...
with St. Sergius Church was demolished during the Soviet time.
After the monastery was disbanded in 1764, the sloboda received municipal rights (1778). Thereafter, Kirzhach, as many other towns in the vicinity, developed primarily as a textile
Textile
A textile or cloth is a flexible woven material consisting of a network of natural or artificial fibres often referred to as thread or yarn. Yarn is produced by spinning raw fibres of wool, flax, cotton, or other material to produce long strands...
centre.
On October 12, 2004, the settlement of Krasny Oktyabr was merged with the town.
Climate
City's climate is moderately continental: a warm summer, a cold winter with a moderate spring and autumn. Average temperature in January is -10.6 degrees Celsius and 18.2 in July. Mean annual precipitation is 584 mm. It averages 151 days per year with temperatures above zero degrees Celsius. A snow cover is present for 4 to 5 months, snow starts to fall usually at the end of November to the beginning of December. Snow melts on sun covered places in the middle of April and in forests at the end of April.Population
| 1897 | 1939 | 1959 | 1989 | 2002 | 2010 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Etymology
The city has received the name from the Kirzhach-river. A root of the name — Kirzh — corresponds to a MokshaMoksha language
The Moksha language is a member of the Finno-Volgaic subdivision of the Uralic languages with about 500,000 native speakers. Moksha is the majority language in the western part of Mordovia....
or Erzya
Erzya language
The Erzya language is spoken by about 500,000 people in the northern and eastern and north-western parts of the Republic of Mordovia and adjacent regions of Nizhniy Novgorod, Chuvashia, Penza, Samara, Saratov, Orenburg, Ulyanovsk, Tatarstan and Bashkortostan in Russia...
word with the meaning "left".