Staritsa
Encyclopedia
Staritsky District
Staritsky District is an administrative and municipal district , one of the 36 in Tver Oblast, Russia....
of Tver Oblast
Tver Oblast
Tver Oblast is a federal subject of Russia . Its administrative center is the city of Tver. From 1935 to 1990, it was named Kalinin Oblast after Mikhail Kalinin. Population: Tver Oblast is an area of lakes, such as Seliger and Brosno...
, 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 on the Volga River
Volga River
The Volga is the largest river in Europe in terms of length, discharge, and watershed. It flows through central Russia, and is widely viewed as the national river of Russia. Out of the twenty largest cities of Russia, eleven, including the capital Moscow, are situated in the Volga's drainage...
, 77 kilometres (47.8 mi) from Tver
Tver
Tver is a city and the administrative center of Tver Oblast, Russia. Population: 403,726 ; 408,903 ;...
. Population:
History
Volga River
The Volga is the largest river in Europe in terms of length, discharge, and watershed. It flows through central Russia, and is widely viewed as the national river of Russia. Out of the twenty largest cities of Russia, eleven, including the capital Moscow, are situated in the Volga's drainage...
. The new settlement was called Novy Gorodok .
Since the 15th century, the town has been called Staritsa (lit. former river-bed). The name was misinterpreted by heraldists who represented on Staritsa's coat of arms an image of aged nun, which is another meaning of the Russian word "staritsa". In 1485, the town fell under the Muscovy rule with the rest of the Principality
Principality
A principality is a monarchical feudatory or sovereign state, ruled or reigned over by a monarch with the title of prince or princess, or by a monarch with another title within the generic use of the term prince....
of Tver. The Golden Age
Golden Age
The term Golden Age comes from Greek mythology and legend and refers to the first in a sequence of four or five Ages of Man, in which the Golden Age is first, followed in sequence, by the Silver, Bronze, and Iron Ages, and then the present, a period of decline...
of the town began.
In the 15th century, the local principality was ruled by Ivan III
Ivan III of Russia
Ivan III Vasilyevich , also known as Ivan the Great, was a Grand Prince of Moscow and "Grand Prince of all Rus"...
's son Andrey
Andrey of Staritsa
Andrey Ivanovich was the youngest son of Ivan the Great by Sophia of Byzantium. Since 1519, his appanages included Volokolamsk and Staritsa....
, and then by Andrey's son Vladimir
Vladimir of Staritsa
Vladimir Andreyevich was the last appanage Russian prince. His complicated relationship with his cousin, Ivan the Terrible, was dramatized in Sergei Eisenstein's movie Ivan the Terrible....
. While 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,...
had no children, Vladimir was regarded by 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 as his only heir. As the Tsar suspected Staritsa's ruler of plotting against him, Vladimir and his children were forced to take poison. The opulence of Staritsa during Vladimir's reign can be seen in the Assumption abbey.
In 1775, Staritsa became a center of an uyezd
Uyezd
Uyezd or uezd was an administrative subdivision of Rus', Muscovy, Russian Empire, and the early Russian SFSR which was in use from the 13th century. Uyezds for most of the history in Russia were a secondary-level of administrative division...
. From October 1941 till January 1942 the town was occupied by the German
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
army.
Layout
The town is split by the river into two parts: the bigger left (Town part) and right (Moscow part). There are a lot of old abandoned limestone quarries in the neighborhood, so there are a lot of old limestone buildings in the town.In the right part of a town a site of an old settlement can be clearly traced, with huge mounds and ground walls. On the opposing left bank of a river stands the Assumption abbey, with a limestone cathedral from 1530 and a tented
Tented roof
A tented roof is a type of roof widely used in 16th and 17th century Russian architecture for churches. It is like a polygonal spire but differs in purpose in that it is typically used to roof the main internal space of a church, rather than an auxiliary structure...
refectory from 1570. There are also several churches from the 18th and 19th centuries.
The city cathedral of Sts. Boris and Gleb
Boris and Gleb
Boris and Gleb , Christian names Roman and David, respectively, were the first saints canonized in Kievan Rus' after the Christianization of the country....
is a ponderous Neoclassical
Neoclassicism
Neoclassicism is the name given to Western movements in the decorative and visual arts, literature, theatre, music, and architecture that draw inspiration from the "classical" art and culture of Ancient Greece or Ancient Rome...
edifice erected from 1805 to 1820. It replaced one of the miracles of old Russian architecture, a many-tented cathedral built in the 1560s by the same masters as worked on the famous St. Basil's Cathedral
Saint Basil's Cathedral
The Cathedral of the Protection of Most Holy Theotokos on the Moat , popularly known as Saint Basil's Cathedral , is a Russian Orthodox church erected on the Red Square in Moscow in 1555–61. Built on the order of Ivan the Terrible to commemorate the capture of Kazan and Astrakhan, it marks the...
in Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...
. Actually, it was said that Moscow and Staritsa cathedrals were two sisters, just like the rulers of two towns, Ivan and Vladimir, were two brothers.
Main industries of Staritsa are clothes factory, flax-manufacturing factory, mechanical and vegetable food factories.
Caves
Staritsa is also noted among Moscow speleologistsSpeleology
Speleology is the scientific study of caves and other karst features, their make-up, structure, physical properties, history, life forms, and the processes by which they form and change over time...
for its 18th–19th century quarries
Quarry
A quarry is a type of open-pit mine from which rock or minerals are extracted. Quarries are generally used for extracting building materials, such as dimension stone, construction aggregate, riprap, sand, and gravel. They are often collocated with concrete and asphalt plants due to the requirement...
. The quarries were created by local people, without any general plan, so they are sometimes very tangled and can be used as a smaller model for horizontal cave
Cave
A cave or cavern is a natural underground space large enough for a human to enter. The term applies to natural cavities some part of which is in total darkness. The word cave also includes smaller spaces like rock shelters, sea caves, and grottos.Speleology is the science of exploration and study...
s labyrinths. The greatest quarries have a total length of passages of about three to five kilometers. The passages are clean and dry, which is unusual for Moscow region. It takes about three hours to reach the quarries from Moscow.
A campaign is ongoing to try to have the quarries recognized as a local heritage site. In the meantime, they are gradually degrading due to lack of supervision.