Zaraysk - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Zaraysk is a town and the administrative center of Zaraysky District

Zaraysky District

Zaraysky District is an administrative and municipal district , one of the 38 in Moscow Oblast, Russia....

Moscow Oblast

Moscow Oblast , or Podmoskovye , is a federal subject of Russia . Its area, at , is relatively small compared to other federal subjects, but it is one of the most densely populated regions in the country and, with the 2010 population of 7,092,941, is the second most populous federal subject...

, 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...

, situated about 162 kilometres (100.7 mi) southeast from 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...

. Population:

The town stands on the right bank of the Osyotr River

Osyotr River

Osyotr River is a river in Tula and Moscow Oblasts in Russia, a right tributary of the Oka River. The length of the river is 228 km. The area of its basin is 3,480 km². The Osyotr freezes up in November and stays icebound until the first half of April. The town of Zaraysk is located on the Osyotr...

, which is a right confluent of the Oka

Oka River

Oka is a river in central Russia, the largest right tributary of the Volga. It flows through the regions of Oryol, Tula, Kaluga, Moscow, Ryazan, Vladimir, and Nizhny Novgorod and is navigable over a large part of its total length, as far upstream as to the town of Kaluga. Its length exceeds...

. In the Middle Age

Middle age

Middle age is the period of age beyond young adulthood but before the onset of old age. Various attempts have been made to define this age, which is around the third quarter of the average life span of human beings....

s, the town belonged to the Princes of Ryazan

Ryazan

Ryazan is a city and the administrative center of Ryazan Oblast, Russia. It is located on the Oka River southeast of Moscow. Population: The strategic bomber base Dyagilevo is just west of the city, and the air base of Alexandrovo is to the southeast as is the Ryazan Turlatovo Airport...

and was known as Krasnoye (13th century) and Novogorodok-upon-the-Osetr (14th and 15th centuries). From 1528 onwards the town was called "the town of Nikola Zarazsky" and only by the beginning of 17th century it received its present name of Zaraysk. Before the 20th century the town was part of Ryazan

Ryazan

guberniya

Guberniya

A guberniya was a major administrative subdivision of the Russian Empire usually translated as government, governorate, or province. Such administrative division was preserved for sometime upon the collapse of the empire in 1917. A guberniya was ruled by a governor , a word borrowed from Latin ,...

, as its architecture and vernacular dialect seem closer to Ryazan than to Moscow.

In Muscovite Russia, Zaraysk was one of the fortresses forming a part of the Great Abatis Border

Great Abatis Border

Zasechnaya cherta is a chain of fortification lines, created by Grand Duchy of Moscow and later the Tsardom of Russia to protect it from the raids of the Crimean Tatars who, rapidly moving along the Muravsky Trail, ravaged the southern provinces of Russia during a series of the Russo-Crimean Wars....

, a fortified line of felled trees, barricades, fortresses, ditches, which were built by Russians as a protection against the hordes of the Crimean and Kazan Tatars

Tatars

Tatars are a Turkic speaking ethnic group , numbering roughly 7 million.The majority of Tatars live in the Russian Federation, with a population of around 5.5 million, about 2 million of which in the republic of Tatarstan.Significant minority populations are found in Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan,...

. In 1531 a stone kremlin

Kremlin

A kremlin , same root as in kremen is a major fortified central complex found in historic Russian cities. This word is often used to refer to the best-known one, the Moscow Kremlin, or metonymically to the government that is based there...

was built in place of the former wooden citadel. The Tatars failed to take the fortress during their raids in 1533, 1541 and 1570. It was briefly captured by the Lisowczycy

Lisowczycy

Lisowczycy or chorągiew elearska ; or in singular form: Lisowczyk or elear) - the name of an early 17th century irregular unit of Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth light cavalry. The Lisowczycy took part in many battles across Europe and the historical accounts of the period characterized them as...

during the Time of Troubles

Time of Troubles

The Time of Troubles was a period of Russian history comprising the years of interregnum between the death of the last Russian Tsar of the Rurik Dynasty, Feodor Ivanovich, in 1598, and the establishment of the Romanov Dynasty in 1613. In 1601-1603, Russia suffered a famine that killed one-third...

.

The brick-and-limestone kremlin in Zaraysk still stands and is kept in a rather good condition. The citadel is very small and has a rectangular shape, with only six towers, two of which are pierced by the gates. Zaraysk is home to five churches, the oldest of which is St. Nicholas Cathedral, consecrated in 1681. There are public statues of Prince Pozharsky who led the defense of the citadel in 1611, and Dostoevsky, whose family had a manor near Zaraysk. At present Zaraysk is an industrial center of the district, with polygraphy, building materials, foodstuff and footwear industry.

External links

History and attractions of Zaraysk Zaraysk on the internet
Photos with annotations in Russian.
Another gallery
Small gallery with comments in English.
Kolomna and Zaraysk in winter
Zaraysk, the “Grandfather City”

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