Peter and Paul Cathedral representative article. Peter and Paul Cathedral - architectural
Peter and Paul Cathedral(official name - Cathedral in the name of the chief apostles Peter and Paul) - an Orthodox cathedral in c, Russian emperors, a monument of architecture. From 1733 until 2012, the 122.5 m high cathedral was the tallest building in St. Petersburg, and until 1952 it was the tallest in Russia.
Story
Reasons for construction
Construction and continued existence
In 1756-1757 the Peter and Paul Cathedral was rebuilt after a fire. In 1773, St. Catherine was consecrated. In 1776, craftsmen B. Oort Kras from were mounted on the bell tower.
In 1777, the spire of the cathedral was damaged by a storm. Restoration work was carried out by an architect, a new figure was completed. In 1830, the damaged figure of an angel was repaired, who went upstairs without erection.
In 1857-1858, the wooden structures of the spire were replaced with metal ones (architect, engineers, and). The main task was to replace wooden ones with metal ones on the bell tower of the cathedral. Zhuravsky proposed to build a structure in the form of an octahedral truncated, connected by rings; he also developed a method for calculating the structure. After that, the height of the building increased by 10.5 meters.
In 1864-1866, the old royal gates were replaced by new ones made of bronze (architect); in 1875-1877 he wrote new ones.
In 1919, the Peter and Paul Cathedral was closed, and in 1924 it was turned into a museum, most of the valuable items of the late XVII - beginning (silver, books, icons) were given to other museums.
Architecture
In terms of its plan and appearance, the Peter and Paul Cathedral does not look like Orthodox or churches. The temple is a rectangular building elongated from west to east - a basilica of the "hall" type, characteristic of architecture. The building is 61 meters long and 27.5 meters wide.
The cathedral was repeatedly repaired and rebuilt. Therefore, the reconstruction of its original form is extremely difficult. The sketch, influenced by foreign impressions of 1697-1698, was made by the tsar himself. The first draft was ordered by Peter I to the Swedish architect Nicodemus Tessin the Younger (1654-1728) modeled on the cathedral in Stockholm. The drawing of the angel crowning the spire (different from the current one) was made by Trezzini on the model of the weather vane of the town hall in (the current, fourth angel after the fire of 1756 and subsequent alterations was made in 1857 according to the drawing of the sculptor R.K. Zaleman). As a result of rebuilding, the height of the spire was significantly increased, and the originally high roof was lowered in the Dutch manner "with a fracture". As a result, the proportions were significantly distorted, an exorbitantly high drum with a small dome began to look ugly. On the western facade, a second, upper pair of volutes was added. The bell tower has undergone significant changes (perestroika 1757-1776 and 1857-1859). The attached entrance portico distorted the intended composition of the western façade. The design drawings of the temple have not been preserved, but it is known that the king ordered the drawings of the "architects" to be given to engravers so that they depict buildings that had not yet been built as really existing. It is believed that the most reliable image of the Peter and Paul Cathedral before the later reconstructions is on an engraving based on a drawing by M. I. Makhaev in 1753. It is known that Makhaev used the drawings of the cathedral in 1747-1748. The two-tiered bell tower in the Trezzini project, as can be seen in the engraving, was an autonomous volume, somewhat recessed in relation to the baroque facade, and not of a Russian, but of a western, tower type. This becomes especially noticeable in comparison with the tiered tower of the Church of the Archangel Gabriel in Moscow (Menshikov Tower), immediately preceding the St. Petersburg bell towers. Tiered bell towers are traditional for ancient Russian architecture. Researchers believe that the bell tower was originally planned exactly of the Western European, tower type. One of the variants of Trezzini's first project (perhaps not realized in nature) is presented in the engraving by A.F. Zubov (1727). Trezzini designed a similar bell tower for the Alexander Nevsky Monastery near St. Petersburg, also depicted in an engraving by Zubov.
One of the prototypes of the Peter and Paul Cathedral was considered the stock exchange building in Copenhagen, where Trezzini worked before coming to Russia. The closest prototypes of the bell tower are the tower of the Church of St. Peter in Riga (1688-1690; Tsar Peter saw it at the beginning of his first trip abroad), the churches of St. Mary-le-Strand (1714-1717, J. Gibbs) in London. The greatest resemblance to the Peter and Paul Cathedral is the London church of St. Martin, built by C. Wren in 1677-1684. (Tsar Peter met with the architect K. Wren in London). It has a square tower with volutes on the sides and is completed with a high spire. Moreover, the tower, which is very unusual for classical architecture, is located in the same plane as the western facade. In medieval Italian architecture, the bell tower (campanile) is located separately from the church building, usually on the south side. In German and in most English churches, as well as in the baroque cathedrals of Italy, the tower or drum with a dome is displaced in depth and is located above the middle cross. In the composition of the western facade of the Peter and Paul Cathedral, its lower tier, shown in the engraving based on the drawing by Makhaev, (if you mentally remove the ridiculous portico) one more prototype is clearly visible: the facades of churches of the Roman Baroque, or the Jesuit style, in particular Il Gesù, Sant'Ignazio and standard projects Carlo Maderno.
It is noteworthy that Trezzini, not possessing a bright creative personality, did not copy anything and cannot be reproached for primitive compilers. “The courage of Trezzini,” he wrote, “was already in the decisive unification of elements of diverse origin, fused into a new whole. He boldly erected the northern tower right above the Italian facade, which surpassed himself. At the same time, both the Catholic Trezzini and the Orthodox Tsar Peter were not at all embarrassed by the combination in the church building of elements characteristic of Catholic and Lutheran churches. The original type of spire-mast, more pointed in comparison with the northern European samples, can also be considered born on the banks of the Neva. It was no coincidence that such spiers were decorated with pennants, which echoed the pennants of the masts of ships sailing along the Neva. Needle-shaped spiers, wooden, upholstered with copper sheets, created a romantic and representative image of the new city in the simplest way and at the lowest cost.
Interior decoration
The inner space of the temple is divided into three by powerful marble-painted columns and resembles a front hall. When making it, were used,. The floor of the cathedral is paved with slabs. The wall painting belongs to the artists Vorobyov and Negrubov. The stucco decoration of the cathedral was completed and, in the central nave, by Pyotr Zybin, paintings on gospel stories on the walls of the cathedral were painted under the general supervision of artists, V. Ignatiev, D. Solovyov, [ ] . The space of the cathedral is illuminated by five of gilded bronze, colored and. The chandelier hanging in front of the altar is an original of the 18th century, the rest were restored after.
Royal Doors in the Peter and Paul Cathedral
Opposite the altar, near the left column of the Peter and Paul Cathedral in St. Petersburg, there is a gilded one for pronunciation. The wooden pulpit was made in 1732 by master Nicholas Kraskop in the forms of the Western European Baroque style. The presence of such an elevation for reading sermons in an Orthodox church is due to Western influence. A spiral wooden staircase leads to the pulpit, decorated with paintings, the theme of which illustrates the biblical saying "". The canopy above the pulpit is decorated with sculptural images of the apostles Peter and Paul and four. The composition is crowned by a dove spreading its wings - the Symbol and the Divine Word. From the Word to the Spirit - this is the main idea of the decoration of the pulpit. Symmetrically to the pulpit - at the right column - is the Royal Place, intended for the emperor and equipped with attributes of monarchical power: swords and a crown.
For a long time, the Peter and Paul Cathedral was a monument to the glory of Russian weapons. Captured banners, keys to cities and fortresses captured by Russian troops were kept here for two centuries. At the beginning of the 20th century, these relics were transferred to. Now the cathedral houses copies of Swedish and Turkish banners. The temple has two thrones. The main one is consecrated in the name of the holy apostles Peter and Paul. The second altar is located in the southwestern corner and is consecrated in honor of the saint.
There are 103 bells on the bell tower, of which 31 have been preserved since 1757. Installed there. Periodically, concerts of carillon music are held in the Peter and Paul Fortress.
Imperial tomb
The custom of burying members of the ruling dynasty in temples was based on the concept of the divine origin of their power. In pre-Petrine Rus', it was a temple, all the great Moscow princes and tsars are buried there from to.
After the death of Peter I, the coffin with his body was placed in a temporary chapel inside the cathedral under construction. The burial took place only on May 29, 1731. Later, all the emperors and empresses were buried in the tomb, up to and including, with the exception of the one who died in Moscow and was buried in and killed in in 1764, the burial place of the latter is still not known.
On March 13, 1990, on the day of the 109th anniversary of the death of Emperor Alexander II, for the first time in the years of Soviet power, a memorial service was served for the Tsar Liberator.
On September 28, 2006, the mother of Nicholas II, who died in Denmark in 1928, was reburied in the temple.
Every year the following events take place in the cathedral: January 5 - Elizaveta Petrovna († 1761); January 30 - murdered Grand Dukes († 1918); February 10 - Peter I († 1725); March 3 - Nicholas I († 1855); March 14 - Alexander II († 1881); March 24 - Paul I († 1801); May 19 - Catherine I († 1727); July 19 - Peter III († 1762); October 13 - Empress Maria Feodorovna († 1928) October 30 - Empress Anna Ioannovna († 1740); November 2 - Alexander III († 1894); November 20 - Catherine II († 1796); December 2 - Alexander I († 1825)
Depiction of the cathedral in culture
In the village there is a cathedral of the same name, which is crowned with a reduced copy of the angel of the Peter and Paul Cathedral.
Davidova M. G.
The Peter and Paul Cathedral, designed in the form of a European basilica,1 at first glance, along with its architectural space, assimilates the European logic of the picturesque design of the naos. The idea of the path, which the basilica temple interior suggests, is revealed here in painting as an image of the path of the cross. The image on the walls of the church of the mournful events of the Calvary road, along which the Savior walked, mourned by His Most Pure Mother and Jerusalem women, is quite often found as a temple decoration for non-Orthodox churches. The stops of the Lord bending under the weight of the Cross, His meetings with the Mother of God and Saint Veronica could be presented in such temples among other subjects of the Passion cycle2. This tradition has come down to our days. If we visit the St. Petersburg church of the Assumption of the Mother of God, which belongs to a Catholic seminary, we will see painted reliefs on its white walls dedicated to the procession of the Savior to Golgotha and His sufferings.
The painting program of the Peter and Paul Cathedral is purely outwardly oriented towards the non-Orthodox canon; however, in its meaning it adjoins the Orthodox tradition. The Passion Cycle is the only pictorial row of the northern and southern walls in which the theme of the Way of the Cross acquires a dominant sound. This feature of the picturesque scenery forms a certain image of the "first stage of perception" of the temple interior, associated with the appearance of a Catholic or Lutheran basilica. At the "second stage of perception" when comprehending the selection of plots, the initial impression is corrected, absorbing a new paradigm of meanings.
The events of the Golgotha road are not presented in the paintings of the Peter and Paul Cathedral in detail. In addition to Ignatiev's composition "Carrying the Cross" on the north wall, this topic was not touched upon by the painters. The key to understanding the complex of Passion Images as a whole is the painting on the plafond (the painting of the 18th century has not been preserved here - it was replaced by the work of Boldini in 18773). The general iconography of the murals, however, is close to the idea of the first half and the middle of the 18th century (after the fire of 1756): in the center are cherubs with instruments of torture, in the side naves are the attributes of the bishop's worship4. The connection of the compositions of the walls with the following of the bishop's service makes it possible to understand painting not just in its historical, but in a liturgical context. The idea of the Way of the Cross thus expands from the image of the Golgotha road to the image of the path of the Savior's earthly life.
The bishop, dressed at the western entrance, symbolizes the incarnation of the Son of God 5. The composition of the western wall of the temple - "The Nativity of Christ" (south side) is dedicated to the theme of the Incarnation; The "Entry of the Lord into Jerusalem" above the door is not only symbolically connected with the idea of the coming of Christ (the incarnation, the Last Judgment), but marks the beginning of the events of Passion Week. Palm Sunday of the Entry of Christ into Jerusalem precedes Holy Monday and follows Lazarus Saturday (the events of Lazarus Saturday are presented in the Peter and Paul Cathedral on the eastern wall on the north side). The painting "The Resurrection of Lazarus" introduces the theme of the Resurrection into the general plan of painting and is associated with a symbolic understanding of the movement of the bishop through the temple. "When the bishop ... at the small entrance enters from the western gate with singing into the altar: then it marks the resurrection from the dead and the ascension from the earth of Christ the Lord Jesus" 6.
"Ascension" - the image of the southern wall closest to the altar. The symbolic meaning of the liturgical attributes presented on the side arches of the cathedral is revealed in the paintings of the longitudinal walls in connection with the image of the Great Bishop - Christ. Although Christ the Great Bishop is absent from the direct text of the picturesque scenery of the naos, allegorically, it is this image that turns out to be the central connecting semantic link of all the paintings of the Peter and Paul Cathedral. It is interesting that the icons of Christ the Bishop were especially common in the 16-17th centuries, and the fresco paintings of the churches of the 17th century often had such images among the central and obligatory ones (typical, for example, for Yaroslavl). The Peter and Paul Cathedral is connected with this tradition of the 17th century indirectly, through the symbolic context of the paintings of the Passion Cycle. On the northern arch you can see the archpastoral miter, three candles and a staff, which are in close proximity to the compositions "Coronation with Thorns" and "Carrying the Cross". The crown of thorns and the Cross are some of the possible symbolic meanings of the miter and staff, according to the interpretations of the New Tablet7.
Trikiriya (three candles) - a symbol of the Trinity. The fact that "Coronation with a crown of thorns" is connected with the theme of hierarchy is confirmed by the composition "Christ before Caiaphas", located opposite on the south wall. In the latter case, the True Bishop will face the court of the false bishop. On the opposite side, the True High Priest Christ is "girdled with a crown of reproach" like a false king and priest. Ephraim the Syrian in the "Sermon on Holy Heel on the Cross and on the Thief" notes that the torturers of Jesus unwittingly honored Him with what they attempted to dishonor. "Mocking, they clothed Him in a chlamys and with their own hands clothed Him as a king. They crowned Him with thorns, like uncultivated land, dissolved the ocetus, like a worthless vineyard ... they gave a sponge, like a Physician of souls; they brought a cane, with which they wrote them rejection" 8. However, the clothes of reproach are transformed by the Resurrection of Christ into clothes of glory and joy. At the vestment of the bishop, it is sung: "Let your soul rejoice in the Lord, clothe thee in a robe of salvation, and clothes of joy; lay a crown on thee like a bridegroom, and adorn thee with beauty like a bride."
The Gospel and one candle (attributes of the Small Entrance to the Liturgy, symbolizing the Incarnation and the preaching of Christ)9 are located on the northern vault next to the painting "Descent from the Cross", the meaning of which is correlated with the semantics of the Great Entrance (transfer of the Body of the Lord from Golgotha to the Sepulcher)10. The theme of the gospel preaching of Christ is dedicated to the picture of the western wall "Young Jesus in the Temple". The miter sometimes symbolizes the Gospel: that is, both images of the northern arch are associated not only with the paintings on the walls, but also with each other.
The rite of the Proskomidia at the Liturgy is a symbolic context for the pictorial decoration of the southern vault: the diskos and the star are correlated with the Nativity of Christ (presented on the western wall from the south side)11. The same liturgical attributes are reminiscent of the Suffering of the Savior on the Cross and of His Resurrection. These images of the vault correspond to the painting "Crucifixion". So, the southern part of the temple opposite the deacon is connected, based on the meaning of the decorative painting of the ceiling, with the rank of Proskomedia. The northern part opposite the altar is actually with the Liturgy. In addition, the left and right parts of the temple are opposed to each other as images of Divine and human service. The paintings of the southern wall mainly reveal the theme of the inability of a weak person to contain the truth of the Savior's Passion on the Cross. On the north side is the ministry of the Lord, in all the steadfastness of His divine devotion to the will of the Heavenly Father. The "washing of the feet" is opposed to the "Anointing of the feet of Christ with the world": among those whose feet were washed by the Savior, there was a traitor; Christ's feet, washed with the tears of a harlot, walked the way of Calvary. Peter renounces his Master for fear of human censure, Christ in Gethsemane does not renounce His ministry even in the face of inhuman Sufferings.
The false bishop sits at the judgment seat, respected by all. The true Bishop and Judge is condemned and reviled. The idea of dividing the spheres of the Divine and the human in the interior of the temple is emphasized by the opposition of the royal place (opposite the deacon) to the priestly place (pulpit opposite the altar). In front of the royal place on the eastern wall is the painting "Caesar - Caesar's", expressing the idea of the need to submit to the power of earth and heaven. Opposite the pulpit on the western side you can see the "Sermon of the Child of Christ", which marks the beginning of the priestly ministry of the Lord.
The Peter and Paul Cathedral in its general appearance resembles the complex of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem12, repeating its emblematic iconography: tower, basilica, dome13. Interestingly, in Orthodox art, the Church of the Holy Sepulcher can be likened to the Cross, and the Cross can be depicted as a temple, a coffin, or an altar apse14. The symbolic convergence of the temple and the Cross is not an accidental phenomenon in art, since these images penetrate each other in liturgical texts. The Feast of the Renewal of the Temple takes place on the eve of the Exaltation of the Cross. The Old Testament readings of both holidays are united by the common themes of Divine Wisdom and Heavenly Jerusalem 15. The Temple and the Cross are identical to each other as images of paradise 16: "Today the second Adam Christ shows a mental paradise, this new tabernacle, bringing instead of the tree of knowledge, the life-giving weapon of the Cross" (from the eighth songs of the canon for the Renovation of the Temple)17. The symbolic space of the Peter and Paul Cathedral can be perceived as the space of the Cross, not only due to the figurative connection of the architecture of the church with the complex of the Holy Sepulcher, but also due to the program of murals.
Entering the cathedral, we find ourselves in the space-time of the Life-Giving Cross, expressed through the text of the Great Heel Clock and presented in painting. Six of the ten middle side compositions of the naos correspond to the stichera and troparia of the Good Friday Hours. The extreme pairs of images (pre-altar and entrance) can be associated with liturgical texts of other days of Passion Week.
The paintings of the western and altar walls complement the liturgical experiences of the Passionate Time with the events of Lazarus Saturday and Palm Sunday, introducing the Christian into the sphere of this special Time. The side images of the temple interior can be read not only as a follow-up to the hours of Good Friday, but also in the context of the service of the twelve Gospels, which takes place the day before in modern liturgical practice. The stichera of the Hours of the Great Heel essentially repeat the main liturgical themes of the latter.
The semantics of the space of the Peter and Paul Cathedral resembles the semantics of the pictorial field of the icons of the Crucifixion of the 16th-17th centuries. It is interesting that some "Crucifixions" were accompanied by a Passion cycle (especially characteristic of Ukraine and Belarus); moreover, the order of stamps on the margins of such images is correlated with the order of arrangement of the paintings of the Peter and Paul Cathedral. If we compare the structure of the Ukrainian "Crucifixions" with the scheme of the picturesque scenery of the temple, then the upper fields of the icons will be associated with the western wall, the lower ones with the altar, and so on. There are also such icon-painting "Crucifixions" in which the entire Passion cycle is not presented in full, but the troparia of the Great Friday Hours are illustrated in detail. On the Stroganov icon from the Russian Museum, the circular "route" of events unfolding at the Cross is determined by the logic of the Friday troparia and stichera.
So, based on the program of murals, we can conclude that the interior of the Peter and Paul Cathedral is a symbolic space of the Cross: the Cross - a symbol of martyrdom - crowns the lives of the supreme apostles Peter and Paul, and in the icon painting tradition of the 17th century, along with images of the Jerusalem temple and Paradise, it can serve as a symbol their lives and ministries. For example, on an icon from the Solvychegodsk Historical and Art Museum18 one can see images of two complementary holidays - the Exaltation of the Cross and the Renovation of the Temple, as well as scenes of the martyrdom of Peter and Paul and Eden with Adam and Eve. All these images are united by the motif of the Cross, which is presented several times on the icon. The Apostle Paul's love for the Cross is eloquently expressed in his Epistles. In the Ikos of the canon for the Exaltation of the Cross, we read about the Apostle Paul: “Even up to the third heaven, I was caught up to paradise, and hearing the words inexpressible and divine ... that he writes in Galatians ...: let me not boast, he says, only in the one Cross of the Lord "19.
Notes:
1. Distant analogues of the Peter and Paul Cathedral in St. Petersburg are the churches of the Holy Spirit (Bern), St. Bride (London) and others. LogachevK.I. Peter and Paul (St. Petersburg) fortress. Historical and cultural guide. L., 1988.
2. The temples of East Germany in the 17th-18th centuries, for example, quite often had Passion cycles as their main images. Sometimes small wooden panels on this theme were decorated with choir stalls (Bedheim, Kreis Hildburghausen, Dorfkirche; Gleichamberg, Kreis Hildburghausen, Dorfkirche). The longitudinal walls of the main nave could have been decorated in a similar way (Egeln, Kreis Sta?furt, Klosterkirche). Christliche Kunst im Kulturerbe der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik. Berlin, 1984. Ill. 23, 100, 147.
3. Elkin E.N. Decorative murals and painting of the Peter and Paul Cathedral// Local History Notes. Research and materials. Issue 2. Peter and Paul Cathedral and Grand Duke's Tomb. SPb., 1994. S. 125.
4. The original paintings of the vaults, made in the fresco technique by P. Zybin (cherubs with instruments of torment, and other images) required restoration already in 1744. The painting was updated
I. Vishnyakov with assistants. Before the fire of 1756, the vaults of the side aisles were probably covered with ornaments. In 1877 two large plafonds in the middle nave and one in the altar were redone by Boldini. (Elkin E.N. Decree. Op. P. 120-125). Most likely, the iconography of the 18th century as a whole was preserved in the 19th century.
5. Archbishop Benjamin of Nizhny Novgorod and Arzamas. A new tablet or explanation about the church, about the Liturgy and about all services and church utensils. T.1. M., 1992. S. 167-168. Next: Tablet.
6. Tablet. S. 167.
7. Ibid. pp. 143-145.
8. Rev. Ephraim the Syrian. From a word on the Honest and Life-Giving Cross and on the Second Coming, as well as on love and alms / / The Cross of the Lord. M., 1998. S. 97.
9. Tablet. pp. 166-167.
10. Ibid. 184-185.
11. Ibid. pp. 158-159.
12. S.V. Trofimov drew attention to the semantic relationship between the Peter and Paul Cathedral and St. Sophia of Constantinople as temples expressing the idea of the center of the Holy City. (Trofimov S.V. The semantic field of the Peter and Paul Cathedral (to the formulation of the problem) / / Local history notes. Research and materials. Issue 2. Peter and Paul Cathedral and the Grand Duke's burial vault. St. Petersburg, 1994. P. 38-55). The center of the Holy City in the direct meaning of this phrase is the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem. The likening of any church to the Holy Sepulcher is natural and traditional. (See about this: Buseva-Davydova I.L. Interpretations on the Liturgy and ideas about the symbolism of the temple in Ancient Rus' / / Eastern Christian Temple. Liturgy and Art. St. Petersburg, 1994. P. 197-203).
13. About the complex of the Holy Sepulcher in fine arts as a symbol of Heavenly Jerusalem and its iconography, see: Lidov A.M. The Image of Heavenly Jerusalem in Eastern Christian Iconography // Jerusalem in Russian Culture. M., 1994. S. 15-25.
14. The Church of the Holy Sepulcher on stone Novgorod icons of the 13th-15th centuries, for example, could be depicted in the form of a Cross, an altar apse or the Holy City (see about this: Ryndina A.V. Old Russian pilgrimage relics. Image of Heavenly Jerusalem on stone icons 13 -15th century//Jerusalem in Russian culture.M., 1994. S. 63-85.
15. "... your gates will be opened, Jerusalem, I will take out day and night, and they will not close, hedgehog to bring the power of tongues to you ... otherwise you will call the city of the Lord, the Zion of the holy Israel ..." (Prophecies of Isaiah reading, Exaltation of the Cross). "Hundred Solomon before the face of the altar of the Lord ... and the speech ... May Your eyes be opened on the house this day and night ..." (Reading of the Third Kings, Renewal of the Temple). "Wisdom has built a house for herself, and establish seven pillars. She has slaughtered her sacrificial one, and dissolved wine in her cups, and prepared her meal...." (Proverbs reading, Renovation of the temple). Menaion. The month of September. M., 1799. L. 165v.-166; L. 148ob.-149ob. Next: Menaion.
16. "Today the garden of animals, from the earth's impenetrable depths comes, on it the nailed Christ announces the resurrection ..." (Stikhira at a small supper, the Exaltation of the Cross). Menaion. L. 163. "Renew, renew, New Jerusalem: your light is come, and the glory of the Lord is exalted upon you..." Menaion. L.160.
17. Menaion. L. 157rev.
18. A two-tiered icon from the Solvychegodsk Historical and Art Museum. Upper register: Renovation of the Church of the Resurrection of Christ in Jerusalem. Lower register: Sophia - the Wisdom of God, praise of the Virgin, the appearance of the Virgin in the breaking of bread to the apostles. Late 16th - early 17th century. 195x59.2x3.8. Egg tempera. Inv. No. SM-540-J. The icon originates from the Solvychegodsk Cathedral of the Annunciation.
19. Menaion. L.171.
Application.
Some quotations from the following of the Friday Hours, revealing the liturgical meaning of the picturesque decoration of the Peter and Paul Cathedral.
Hour one.
"Eat thee unlawful, enduring it, thou didst cry out, Lord: if thou smite the shepherd, and shed twenty sheep, my disciples, you may be greater than twenty legions of angels." (Stikhira, ch. 8.). (Christ spoke about the angelic legions to his disciples in the Garden of Gethsemane after praying for a cup. Mt. 26:53).
Hour three.
“For the sake of the Jews, your friend and neighbor Peter rejected you, O Lord, and crying out loudly: do not stop my tears, keep the faith, generous, and do not save.” (Troparion, ch. 8.).
"Before Your honorable cross, a warrior who scolds You, O Lord, the smart army marveled: for you were overlaid with a crown of reproach, painting the earth with flowers, dressed in purple reproach, clothe the firmament with clouds." (Troparion, ch. 8.).
Hour six.
“This is the Lord saying to the Jews: My people, what will I do to you: or what will you do to you who are cold? ... or what will you repay Me?
"The legislators of Israel, the Jew and the Pharisee, the face of the apostle cries out to you: behold the temple, whom you will destroy; behold the Lamb, whom you will crucify, you will betray to the tomb; but by His power He is risen." (Troparion, ch. 8.).
"... We see that the council of Judas is a traitor with the lawless priests against our Savior: today is guilty of the death of the Immortal Word of the Creator ..." (Glory, ch. 5.).
Hour nine.
“It’s terrible to see the heavens and earth of the Creator hanging on the cross, the sun has faded, the day is changed into night again, and the earth from the tombs sends up the bodies of the dead; with them we worship Thee, save us.” (Troparion, ch. 7.).
"Today it hangs on a tree, Even hanging the earth on the waters; it is crowned with thorns, even the King of angels; ... the Bridegroom of the Church is nailed with nails; the Son of the Virgin is pierced with a copy." (Troparion, ch. 6.).
Construction from natural material
Paramonova L. N.
Creating images from natural material, children not only (and not so much) reflect their structure, but convey the character, express their attitude. Because of this, construction from natural material is closer in nature to the artistic type. That is why it is so important to move away from the traditional methodology, the purpose of which is to teach children to create specific crafts from a specific material. The task of the teacher is to teach children to feel the specifics of natural material, to see the palette of its colors, shapes, textures, and on this basis to create a variety of artistic images. Such an approach, on the one hand, develops imagination, creativity, on the other hand, it leads children to master a generalized way of constructing an image based on visualization.
O.M. Dyachenko distinguishes two main qualitatively different methods of action for building an imaginary image. We are talking about 1) "objectification", when a child perceives a certain object in an unfinished drawing; 2) about "inclusion", when the figure given in the figure turns into a secondary element of an imaginary image. The researcher believes that the second method is distinguished by a higher level, since it leads to originality and productivity of decisions. As shown by our team with O.A. Christ research, for the development of creative imagination, it is fundamentally important to teach children the ability to analyze the material (in the aggregate of all properties), first as the basis of the future image created by the "objectification" method, then - as a detail that is significant for building a holistic image by the "inclusion" method. This is, firstly; secondly, it is necessary to form such skills, design techniques as "complete" the image, "change the spatial position", "remove unnecessary", "combine". Based on these provisions, we have developed a three-stage training system.
First stage of training, senior group
Main tasks: a) to form the ability to analyze natural material as the basis for future crafts (to select roots, branches, knots); b) to teach the three main methods of constructing an image by the method of "objectification" - the ability to "change the spatial arrangement", "complete construction", "remove unnecessary things". The last technique (unfortunately, it is almost never used in practice) significantly affects the development of the imagination. The "objectification" method is fundamental, because it allows one to form the ability to see the whole before the parts. Note: in this way, children create several original, significantly different images on the same basis. It is at the basis of its assimilation that another method is born - "inclusion".
To solve the tasks set, at least six classes and two excursions to the park (forest park, forest) should be held. In the first two lessons, children are divided into subgroups and taught to consider natural material, to distinguish all kinds of images in configurations. The material is prepared in advance. These can be medium-sized roots, branches, knots, in which you can "see" a specific image. Already at the lesson in the group room, the Old Man-Forester doll will help develop the course of action: he will offer to carefully examine the natural material laid out on the table, imagine who his pretending friends look like, and then practically embody the images presented, using plasticine and some small material . "Practically" means: children will mainly strengthen the figures, prompted by the configuration of the material, to the stand, determine their spatial arrangement, complement the images with small natural material and plasticine.
Roots, branches, knots are also prepared for the next lesson, which differ from the previous ones in that their configuration should evoke different associations, so that it is possible to construct two or three images on the same basis. In the course of the dialogue, examining the material with the help of the Old Man-Forester, the teacher helps the children to see more than one "mystery": by turning the material in different directions, covering some part of it with his hand or adding a small detail, he demonstrates techniques for creating different images on the same basis. Thus, the teacher leads the children to master three important methods of "objectification" of natural material as a holistic image - to the fact that it is possible to change the spatial position, remove the excess and complete it. In addition, it encourages speech. In other words, it develops a general discussion. (First child. It looks like Baba Yaga's house. Educator. Where is the door? Second child. Yes, and there are no chicken legs here. First child. But the door is not needed, because Baba Yaga flies out into the chimney. Here the legs must be done, then there will be a real house of Grandma Ezhka.)
In the second lesson, most children will prefer the build-in technique and only a small part will try to use the "remove the excess" technique. In this case, the teacher, if the children ask, breaks off or cuts off the extra parts. As a result, it becomes possible to design up to 20 different crafts, which the authors themselves will give characteristics ("merry clown", "cunning fox with a rolling pin", "thin and evil wolf", "hungry crocodile".
An excursion to a nearby park (or forest park) - with two baskets, a large one and a smaller one, to collect natural material - will sum up the first two activities. The old man-forester will help maintain interest; he will show, say, the way to the clearing where his forest friends live, he will remind you that you need not only to collect material, but also, having carefully examined it, determine what it looks like, with what (or with whom) you can compare. The collected material is jointly prepared for further practical work (it is laid out in boxes, if necessary, it is cleaned, dried, and soaked).
Such design education not only develops children's creative imagination, but, no less important, fosters a careful attitude towards nature. After all, children only collect material - cones, branches, fancy knots, and do not tear, do not break, do not cut. They learn to treat nature as a living organism. At the same time, we emphasize, they gain experience in safe and careful handling of natural material: do not touch an unfamiliar plant, you can cut yourself with grass, get hurt on a sharp knot.
In the third and fourth lessons, tasks of a problematic nature are offered: the task is to create crafts based on a given basis. New items will serve as the material: pieces of tree bark of various sizes and configurations, dry tree mushrooms (as a base). Children should carefully consider them and determine what they look like, and fulfill their plan. In the third lesson, children create individual crafts. By this time, most of them can already build quite original images based on the new material. And although the “completion” technique still prevails, some will use the “remove the excess” technique. Basically, children's crafts will represent figures of animals, people, fairy-tale characters and will not differ much from the given basis. The created image is dictated primarily by the configuration of the material. It is not excluded that some children will change the initial plan in the process of work: they will turn the submarine into a fish ("This is a magic fish. It shows the way to the ship. If necessary, the fish will turn into a boat to save people"). However, most already at this stage strictly adhere to the plan. Yes, technical difficulties will arise - after all, you need to pick up an additional part, attach it to the base or deepen the gap to make a mouth or an open beak, etc. Naturally, the problem is solved with the help of a teacher. Others will work without changing much of the chosen basis. So, one child can see the mouth of a crocodile in a piece of tree bark, the other - a cloud in a tree fungus. The teacher must save these crafts, as they can be used in the next lesson when creating complex compositions.
In the fourth lesson, children work in subgroups and, using all the crafts, create different compositions. Selection and creation of a composition are two interconnected moments. Practice shows: often children, having chosen their favorite craft, having come up with a plot based on it, nevertheless either use another one or change it a little. The composition pushes them to this. The teacher is actively involved in this process: it reminds of a crocodile, a cloud, thereby helping to turn the composition in a more interesting direction; encourages each group to come up with a short story.
The theme of the last two lessons is design by design. Having determined the idea, the children independently select the natural material: the large one is used as the basis for crafts, the small one is used for details. ("No, the ears must be large, so it's better to take maple lionfish"). This indicates a desire to give expressiveness to the image. The task of the educator is to note the original solutions and discuss them with the whole group. The theme of crafts can be repeated. However, due to the fact that a different natural material is used, the images change significantly. In design, the techniques of "complete", "remove unnecessary" are still used. Along with individual figures, simple compositions are created ("a girl with a dog", "a family of hedgehogs", "a scarecrow and a dog"). Almost all images are built on the basis of material analysis; material configuration factors and its size predominate. In order to finally form an interest in design, to support the desire to work with natural material, from handicrafts made in the course of classes and independent activities, an exhibition is organized in the lobby of the kindergarten. Children are welcome to submit their own work. As a consolidation at the end of the year, a task is given for the summer - to collect natural material, to think about what kind of composition it can form the basis of.
The second stage of training, a preparatory group for school. The main task is to form the ability to build an image using the "inclusion" method. To do this, children are taught to analyze natural material not only as the basis of a future craft (as at the first stage), but also as a detail that is significant for building a holistic image, by including it in this integrity. Mastering this way of building an image significantly expands the functionality of natural material: the same material can be both the basis of a craft and its detail. So, in one case, a fluffy pine cone is the body of an owlet (with a small addition) or a bell, in the other, it is the hat of an Old Man-forester, in whose hands is a basket, and next to it is a dog. This topic is given at least three lessons. But first, the teacher organizes excursions to a nearby park to collect material. Each child has a plastic bag, adults have large bags. Note: now the children will collect the material on their own; moreover, to discuss how it can be applied.
At the first lesson, which is held in subgroups, the children, having told in advance about the future craft, design according to their own plan from the material collected on the excursion. As practice shows, for most, the intention coincides with the end result. The main method of construction is still "objectification", implemented by three methods. The name of the craft already reflects the essential features of the created image ("Conductor", "Acrobat", "Soldier with a grenade"). This suggests that children see the specifics inherent in the material itself, pick up the basis of the image, given by nature, and emphasize with additional details. The same "Acrobat" suggests the configuration of the material. And the child will remove the extra branches, leaving only the "arms" and "legs", complement the figure with a "head". The created images now have details that emphasize the characteristic features. It can be a princess in a crown and a long skirt or a musketeer in boots, a cape, a hat with a feather and a sword in his hand. Some will be able to complete not one, but two or three crafts, even interconnected by a common meaning: it is important that the teacher at the end of the lesson invite the children to talk about their crafts. This allows you to include the created images in a wider context, which will lead to the desire to change, supplement the craft.
In the second lesson, at the suggestion of the teacher, the children, working in subgroups, will design according to their own design. Everyone receives a certain natural material as an element of future crafts. What is the task in this? It is important that, firstly, your own craft is created based on the material as part of something whole; secondly, the same material was used multifunctionally. Note: with rare exceptions, children cope with the task. Work experience shows that most people successfully use the given natural material as a detail or part of a holistic image that they invented on their own - handicrafts are distinguished by their original subject matter, design, and expressiveness. It is necessary to fix the children’s attention on this at the end of the lesson: notice an interesting solution, invite someone from each group to tell about their craft (the children themselves choose the narrator), and in the evening draw a craft and come up with a story for it. Invented stories an adult writes down small books, decorates with children's drawings. Together with the children, he comes up with a name, draws up a cover, which indicates the name and surname of the author.
At the next, third lesson, the teacher offers the task of completing the figure: he distributes to everyone the same, pre-prepared cruciform figures - two sticks (twigs) of the same size, fastened in the middle. Based on these figures, children must come up with and design something of their own. The task is problematic, it causes certain difficulties. The fact is that children are already accustomed to creating figures of people, animals, it is difficult for them to include a cruciform figure in a new type of construction. And yet, examining carefully, they find a solution using the methods of "objectification" and "inclusion". The main technique will be "finishing the foundation". Some will move on to plot construction ("A fisherman is sitting on a raft", "A fat miller is standing by the mill", "Little Red Riding Hood is standing by the house"). For others, the given figure will form the basis of the craft (raft, stand, panel); the third - a part or detail in the overall design (propeller, window, mill blades, etc.). The vast majority of crafts will be strikingly different from the given figure.
The fourth lesson can be carried out according to the same type. Each subgroup receives from the teacher the same figure, made up of a certain material; say, the first - two connected acorns; the second - alder cones on a branch; the third - straw tied in a certain place; the fourth - pieces of bark with a stick fixed in the center. Task: each group creates their own craft based on the figure that they received. Children think about the future design for quite a long time, nevertheless, they complete the task, because they include the material as part of the whole. It should be noted that technical skills are worked out in all these classes: preference is given to simple operations - to tighten with a thread, fasten with glue, colored thin wire, plasticine; more complex actions - work with an awl, a knife, varnishing - are performed by the educator.
After the last two lessons, the teacher gives the children the opportunity to combine designs, come up with stories, and draw them for a week. The adult writes down these compositions, draws them up together with the children in books.
The third stage of training, a preparatory group for school. Main tasks: 1) expand the basic methods and techniques for building an image; 2) to form the ability to embody the idea (create an image), taking into account: a) the general plot, detailing and enriching the image; b) the specifics of the natural material. To solve problems, two classes are held, the purpose of which is to teach children to design according to their own plot. This work is organically connected with the previous activity, when it was necessary to come up with a fairy tale and include it in the plot. The theme of the last two lessons of the second stage significantly enriches the plot line. It turns out that when combining crafts, something else needs to be completed to complete the transfer of the plot, transform the image, etc.
At the first lesson of the third stage, the children, as it were, continue to work in the same direction. Selecting the necessary material, most often small in quality and additions, and design of the main part, they construct according to the plot of an invented fairy tale or some kind of story. Such a technique, widely using the methods of "objectification", "inclusion", "completion", "changes in spatial position", etc., puts children in the conditions of the need not only to build an image based on visualization (material), but also to verbally fix his characterization. This is how children develop language. After all, it is necessary to describe in detail the hero, his appearance, character, behavior, saturate the story with figurative nouns, adjectives, apt comparisons. In addition, the craft, its inclusion in the plot creates an image that is more mobile, more lively. And here the teacher can use the theme of children's favorite fairy tales, fables, cartoons. For clarity, we give an example of plot construction. Composition: on his birthday, guests come to a lonely hedgehog - he has no parents. (The images are prepared in previous lessons.) This is a fat and cheerful hamster, a swimming champion turtle, friendly hedgehog brothers, a very important turtle Tortila. Naturally, gifts are presented: Tortila - water lilies, a hamster - seeds, baby turtles and hedgehogs - apples (they are strengthened on needles). In the evening, together with the children, the teacher writes down the fairy tale "Hedgehog's Birthday".
What should be paid attention to? Individually differentiated management of activities is important, when the nature of the child's attitude to reality, his preferences in the choice of means of expression are taken into account. In addition, it is enough for one to motivate the task, the other, on the contrary, needs constant support. All problems can be solved if an adult cooperates with children, talks with them, does not teach, but solves jointly emerging issues both at the stage of implementing the idea and at the stage of its implementation.
Kindergarten site: construction from different materials
The kindergarten site and natural material allow you to create structures of larger sizes. Thus, a successful transition is made from a small space to the development of a large one. At the same time, the work is mostly collective in nature. So, on a flat, slightly moistened sand surface, you can lay out a large “carpet” or a whole city with houses, with wide streets (cars drive along), a square with a fountain (planar design) from pebbles or shells of different sizes, shapes and colors. To mold three-dimensional buildings from wet sand: a castle, a mill, a fortress surrounded by a moat; across the river, along which ships (from foam, bark, paper) are sailing, throw a bridge of logs. From paper packaging, cardboard boxes and tubes from toilet paper, paper towels, boys can build a city, a fortress, fill them with machines constructed from different materials, figures of knights. The theme of the designs is very diverse: this is a zoo made of cardboard boxes, where a giraffe, a snake, and a crocodile live; and a cosmodrome with rockets, a lunar rover, astronauts, robots; and the jungle with outlandish trees intertwined with vines. Volumetric animals can be made using drawing paper, folding it in half and cutting out the outline of the animal. Children will color this outline and fill it with crumpled newspapers. By joint efforts, the contour is fastened with a stapler.
Large stones are also suitable for large volumetric figures in the kindergarten area. First, a structure is formed (a crocodile, a snake, a lizard, etc.), then the configuration is painted with paints. Such stone figures in the selected area (among the bushes, in the grass, next to the flower bed) will serve as a good decoration.
It is possible to design on the site of the kindergarten within a few weeks. Children have the opportunity to constantly improve their crafts, add new images in accordance with the plot being played. The background - grass, sand, earth, wooden boards, snow - will only reinforce the general idea. The theme of the composition is dictated by the idea of the game: a counter, scales are built for the store, goods are selected - sweets packed in boxes, vegetables and fruits; for a trip to Africa - wild animals, weapons (arrows, guns), binoculars, mosquito masks; in winter, a fortress and snow hills are built. A traditional winter activity is the modeling of a snow woman decorated with a red carrot nose and a broom, the Snow Queen, Baba Yaga and other fairy-tale characters. Soft, well-molded snow rolls into large blocks, and then with a spatula (by removing excess) one or another figure is created. Snow "bricks" are suitable for building castles, fortresses, houses, etc. And to make the structures and figures look colorful, they are filled with tinted water. So, along the way, in practice, children get acquainted with the properties of snow and water. The task of the teacher is to pick up the idea proposed by the children, to help with advice. What is very important: the teacher determines in advance the place where the material, children's designs are stored. The question arises: what if interest fades? The design is disassembled together with the children, and what has become unusable is put in the dustbin, and what else can be useful (snags, boards, etc.) is added up. The very act of cleaning contributes not only to maintaining order on the site, but also showing respect for the activities of children, its results.
Volga region
Middle and Lower Volga
Kruber A.A.
Space and surface
The Volga region occupies 5 provinces located along the middle and lower reaches of the Volga: Kazan, Simbirsk, Samara, Saratov and Astrakhan. It is the third largest region of Russia. The western half of the region is occupied by the Volga Upland and its continuation in the south - Ergeni, the northeastern part - the spurs of the General Syrt. In the middle lies the lowland of the Volga River, which in the south passes into the Caspian depression. The entire region gradually drops to the southeast and off the coast of the Caspian Sea lies below the ocean level by 12 sazhens. The Volga Upland is an elevated plateau (up to 400 meters), cut through by wide and deep river valleys and ravines. In the east, it gives a large spur - the Samara bow, encircled on three sides by the Volga. The northern side of this peninsula, the Zhiguli Mountains, was formed due to the subsidence of the earth layers and with its deep gulley valleys, bizarre limestone cliffs, steep cliffs and dense forests, has a wild and picturesque appearance. An elevated and hilly area is also represented by the northeastern, trans-Volga side of the region, filled with spurs of the General Syrt.
The glacier touched only the westernmost edge of the Volga Upland. Therefore, sedimentary rocks here are not covered by strata of glacial deposits and more often protrude to the surface. These are limestones, chalk, sandstones. Most of the region, relatively recently, was the seabed, and when plowing fields in the Samara province, many shells of mollusks are found, related to those that still live in the Caspian Sea.
Within Europe, the Caspian Sea then set far to the north, approximately as far as Saratov. The present, separate mountains Big and Small Bogdo were then islands. In the southeast, it was connected by a strait with the Aral Sea, which also occupied a much larger area, and in the southwest with the Black and Azov Seas. Its bottom was covered with clayey and sandy sediments. Then came the period of drying up of the sea and its gradual retreat to the south. The seabed was exposed and formed the current Caspian lowland - a vast semi-steppe, semi-desert with salt lakes and sands scattered over it.
This entire region is cut from north to south by one large river, the Volga, into which, in addition to the Kama, small tributaries flow: Sviyaga - on the right, Samara, Big Irgiz - on the left. In the west, the tributaries of the Don flow: Khoper and Medveditsa. The Volga within this region is already a mighty river. Below the confluence of its largest tributary, the Kama, it is from 2 to 4 versts wide, and during the spring flood it overflows in the lower reaches by 20 to 40 versts. Its valley has a corresponding width, and within its limits the Volga often changes its direction, washing away one bank and moving away from the other. So the Volga left Kazan and Saratov. But some cities, for example, Vasilsursk, when the Sura flows into the Volga, had to be moved several times from place to place, because the Volga eroded the coast. As a result of a change in the main channel, islands, bays and backwaters are formed (which are of great importance as places for winter parking of ships), shoals, sands and rifts - in the river itself, oxbow lakes and lakes, called here "ilmens" - in the flooded part of its valley. Not reaching the city of Tsaritsyn, almost 500 miles before it flows into the sea, the Volga separates the Akhtuba tributary, which independently flows into the Caspian Sea. The Volga flows here already in steep monotonous clay banks. The Volga delta occupies up to 15 thousand square miles. The mouth itself is an extremely intricate network of branches, channels, lakes, bays, numerous islands and islets, either emerging from the water or again flooded. A huge amount of water poured in by the Volga makes the water of the Caspian Sea in this place a little salty. The sediments carried by it form shoals that make up the underwater continuation of the delta; as a result, deep-seated ships cannot enter the Volga from the sea.
The Volga Territory stretches from north to south for 1200 versts and therefore embraces areas with different nature. But throughout the region, the climate retains its property: pronounced continentality. Winter in Saratov is colder than in Petrograd. In January, it is as cold in Astrakhan as in Pskov, and the Caspian Sea near the coast is covered with ice for tens, and sometimes hundreds of versts. But the summer is very hot. The average temperature in Astrakhan is +25º and even in Kazan it is +20º. The amount of precipitation gradually decreases to the south and in Astrakhan it reaches only 15 centimeters. Therefore, in the extreme south, snow cover is often absent. Winds still prevail in the middle Volga region, from the west and north-west; in the lower - southeast. In summer, these winds in the steppe are characterized by high temperatures, carry clouds of dust and have a detrimental effect on vegetation. In winter, terrible storms and snowstorms break out. Of particular importance is the direction of the wind at the mouth of the Volga, where, due to the small drop in the channel, the winds can raise or lower the level by almost 9 feet.
Only the extreme north of the region enters the forest zone. The middle Volga region lies in the transition zone of the forest-steppe, the lower one - most of the provinces of Saratov, Samara and all of Astrakhan - in a purely steppe zone. Like the Chernozem region, the forest here was advancing on the steppe until it was stopped by man. Starting from north to south, all forms of the steppe with a variety of soils are found here. Chernozem feather grass steppe, rich in herbaceous vegetation; poorer wormwood steppe with chestnut soils and, finally, solonchak steppes with sparse vegetation, clayey-sandy soils, salt lakes and loose sands swept away by winds into dunes. The steppe, located in the lower reaches of the Volga on its right bank, is called Kalmyk, on the left - Kirghiz.
The sands gradually move over the steppe, falling asleep and destroying the vegetation. Real dunes stretch along the Volga coast; sand fills roads, lakes, and even houses in villages. The coastal strip is narrowing, pastures, and places of nomadic Kyrgyz disappear. Among this semi-desert, the Volga Delta is a real green oasis; its islands are overgrown with dense thickets of reeds, reaching 2-3 fathoms in height; in the most remote backwaters, pink flowers of the Indian lotus are still found.
The population and its activities
The Volga region was conquered in the middle of the 16th century. Since that time, its colonization by Russians began. The settlement proceeded much more likely in the northern forest half than in the southern steppe. In addition to the settlers settled by the government, many more restless elements flocked here - "freemen", thanks to which this region could not develop peacefully for a long time. The well-known riots of Stenka Razin Pugachev unfolded here. Most of the population is now Great Russians (62%), who are evenly distributed throughout the region; there are many schismatics among them. Little Russians began to move later, and therefore their number is relatively small, they live in the Samara province. On the other hand, by the time of its conquest by the Russians, the Volga region had a large foreign population, Finnish and Turkic, moreover, not scattered, but united into states. This population only partly merged with the Russians, but for the most part survived and now makes up ⅓ of the entire population of the region. The most numerous of the foreigners, the Tatars, live in all provinces, but most of all in Kazan.
The main occupation of the Tatars is agriculture, for which, however, they are little capable. In foreign farms they are good workers and have gained fame for their honesty, physical strength and hard work. Their favorite pastime is trade, which is a kind of seasonal business for them. There are also very rich merchants-millionaires. Tatars are Mohammedans, committed to their religion. The clergy are very numerous and are in charge of teaching. Literacy among the Tatars is very common.
The Tatars are followed in number by the Chuvash, most of whom also live in the Kazan province. Chuvash, apparently, Tatarized Finns. There are also pagans among them. Of the Finnish tribes, the Mordovians are especially numerous, a tall and physically strong people; much more numerous are Cheremis, Votyaks, Bashkirs. All these tribes are scattered as islands among the Russian population and gradually merge with them. Separately, there are nomadic tribes: the Kirghiz, in the Volga part of the Astrakhan province, and the Kalmyks, on the western side of the Volga. Kalmyks who moved here in the 17th century, Mongols-Buddhists; some of them are already leading a semi-sedentary lifestyle.
The third element of the population are Germans living in the Saratov and Samara provinces. They were called here from Germany and Switzerland by the government as colonists. Most of them are Lutherans. Thanks to the large land plots received during the resettlement, they live more prosperously than Russians.
According to the sources of livelihood delivered to the population, the Volga region is divided into two parts: the first is the provinces of Kazan, Simbirsk, Saratov and Samara. The second is Astrakhan. The first is covered for most of its length by fertile chernozem - a continuation of the Central Russian chernozem and the main source of livelihood for its population is agriculture. The amount of plowed land is much more than half of the total area; but due to the still small population of the region, here, especially in the Trans-Volga region, there is no such land crowding as in the black earth region, and in the Samara province there are many meadows and pastures. The predominant farming system is three-field, and in the southern part of the Samara province it is fallow, and the fallows also serve as pasture for livestock. Of the grains, oats, rye, and wheat are most sown. A significant surplus of grain is exported to inner Russia and abroad. Very fertile soil gives large crops, especially in the Samara province, but there are crop failures due to drought, accompanied, as in the Chernozem region, by hunger strikes of the population. In addition to grain breads, sunflowers and hemp are bred, from the seeds of which oil is produced. In the Saratov, Samara and Astrakhan provinces, melon growing is developed, representing the transition from the fields of culture to gardening. Bakhchi bashtans are planted on the best virgin or fallow lands, usually for one year, after which these plots are sown with grain crops. On the towers, mainly melons, watermelons are bred, which are exported in large numbers through the cities of Tsaritsyn and Kamyshin. Equally important is horticulture, which is common in all provinces in the Volga region, mainly on the right bank of the Volga. Apple trees, cherries and all kinds of berries are bred, and in the southern part of the Samara and Astrakhan provinces even grapes. Horticulture is especially developed in the Saratov province, where its centers are the Dubovka settlement, the village of Zolotoe and the Sarepta colony, near which a lot of mustard is bred. Industry is of much lesser importance in the national economy. The factory industry is directed, as in the black earth provinces of central Russia, to the processing of agricultural and livestock products. The first place is occupied by steam mills; the largest of them are located in Saratov and Samara. They are followed by distilleries and oil mills. In the processing of animal products, the first place belongs to the processing of wool (in the Simbirsk province), followed by the dressing of stearin candles and glycerin, soap and leather production in Kazan and the Kazan province. Sawmilling is also well developed. The wood delivered from the Volga and Kama is sawn and only then goes on sale. The main center of sawmilling and timber trade is the city of Tsaritsyn in the Saratov province, the most important timber market in southeastern Russia.
But agriculture and industry still leave many free hands, which are looking for applications in seasonal trades. Laying trades play a very important role for the local population. They employ up to half a million people, and most of the workers move only within their own region, which, in addition, provides income to a large number of workers who come from other regions. They go to work mainly from the northernmost less fertile areas, mainly from the Kazan province. While the southern provinces, Samara and Astrakhan, on the contrary, are in need of workers, especially Samara, where in some southern districts during the harvesting of grain over 200 thousand alien workers find earnings. Syzran and the Pokrovskaya Sloboda of Samara Gubernia, located opposite Saratov, are the gathering places for workers, "worker markets".
The second part of the region, the Astrakhan province, is a steppe with infertile soil. The amount of plowed land here is negligible. Most of the land belongs to nomads, Kalmyks and Kirghiz, whose main source of livelihood is cattle breeding. Horses, cattle, sheep and camels are bred. Livestock is all year round in the steppe for grazing. With deep snow and snowstorms, cattle cannot get food for themselves and die in masses.
Fisheries are of great importance for the whole region, delivering fish worth several tens of millions of rubles, and earning up to 120 thousand local and alien workers. Industrial fishing starts from Tsaritsyn and reaches its largest size near Astrakhan. There are a lot of large fish merchants here, who own and rent tens of thousands of acres of fish tonya from the treasury. Caught mainly "partial" fish: vobla and herring; "red" fish: sturgeon, beluga. Sterlet is caught much less, but very valuable caviar is extracted from it. The main fish catch is in the spring, when it comes from the Caspian Sea up the Volga for spawning. Due to predatory fishing, the number of fish is rapidly decreasing.
The mouth of the Volga and, in general, the entire northwestern part of the Caspian Sea represent the richest fishing grounds in the world. It depends on the low salinity and shallowness of the Caspian Sea, on the slow current and the large amount of precipitation brought by the Volga. Countless islands, backwaters, bays, channels, lakes that make up the Volga delta continue along the shores of the Caspian Sea, representing very convenient places for fish to live. Due to frequent fluctuations in the water level depending on the flood of the rivers (during the flood of the Volga, the level of the Caspian Sea rises by 2 feet), from the driving of water by the winds, these "fish pastures" now protrude from the water, then again hide under the water. As a result, the decomposition of organic remains is much faster, vegetation and lower organisms develop in these places with extraordinary richness and speed, causing in turn the rapid reproduction of various insect larvae, crustaceans and other small animals that make up the main food of fish.
On the islands of the Caspian Sea in spring and autumn, they also hunt seals.
In connection with fisheries, there is the extraction of self-planting salt from salt lakes, mainly from Baskunchak. Half of the salt produced is used for salting fish, while the other half is exported. The number of workers employed in the salt mines is comparatively small. These are mostly Kalmyks, Kirghiz and Tatars.
Settlements and communications
The Volga region is rather sparsely populated. There are an average of 23 people per square verst. The population density decreases from north to south and in the Astrakhan province it is only 6 people per square verst. After the Northern Territory and the Olonets Governorate, the Astrakhan Governorate is the most sparsely populated part of European Russia. The size of the settlements is generally large, as is the Chernozem region. The further south, the more settlements cling to the Volga - the main artery of the region, along which communication takes place not only in the Volga region, but also inland Russia with Central Asia, the Caucasus and Persia. Even in ancient times, the Volga was an important trade route connecting Eastern Europe with Central Asia, and trading centers existed at the extreme points of the Volga region already in the 8th century. At the mouth of the Volga - Itil, the capital of the Khazar kingdom (slightly higher than the present Astrakhan) and - slightly below the confluence of the Volga with the Kama - Bolgars, the capital of the Bulgarian kingdom, the ruins of which have survived to this day. Subsequently, their place was taken by Astrakhan and Kazan. Currently Astrakhan is one of the most important commercial ports throughout Russia. Large vessels, however, cannot approach Astrakhan, but stop for full or partial unloading in the so-called "9-pounder" and "12-pounder" raids (90 and 155 versts from Astrakhan).
Another ancient shopping center, Kazan, with the construction of railways, has retained only the remnants of its former commercial significance. The construction of railways further strengthened the commercial importance of the Volga. Goods brought along the Volga: timber from above, oil, fish, salt from below - are reloaded onto railways and transported from here to the interior of European Russia, and grain brought to the river by rail is loaded onto ships and from here goes up the Volga to the ports of the Baltic Sea. Therefore, the cities located at the intersection of the railways with the Volga developed into very large shopping centers. These are: Saratov, on the right bank of the Volga, connected by rail with Moscow. This line continues on the other side of the Volga from Pokrovskaya Sloboda to Uralsk and Astrakhan. Tsaritsyn, a district town of the Saratov province, is located very advantageously in the place where the Volga is getting closer to the Don. One railway on Gryazi - Orel - Riga connects it with inner Russia and the Baltic region. Another to Novorossiysk - with the Black Sea, the third with the Don. Samara is on the left bank of the Volga, located at the intersection of the Volga with the railway line connecting central Russia with Siberia (via Ufa - Chelyabinsk) and Central Asia (via Orenburg). In Samara, therefore, more grain is loaded than anywhere else on the Volga. The Samara pier is arranged extremely conveniently, and the grain from the elevators is poured directly onto the barges. A lot of grain is also loaded at the Batraki station, located on the right bank of the Volga, not far from Syzran. Here the Volga is crossed by a huge bridge, having a length of up to 1? miles. Kazan, the terminal point of the Moscow-Kazan railway, and Simbirsk are of lesser commercial importance. The grain trade in the northeastern part of the Volga region is concentrated in the city of Chistopol, Kazan province, located on the Kama.
Thanks to lively trade, the cities of the Volga region are growing very quickly. Saratov has more than 200 thousand inhabitants, Kazan, Astrakhan and Samara more than 100 thousand, Tsaritsyn - 90 thousand. Kazan - "the capital of the Volga region" and Saratov have universities and are major cultural centers of the region.
The cities of the middle Volga region are located mostly on the right upland bank of the Volga, from which magnificent views of the meadow side open. There are few historical and architectural monuments in them. In Kazan and Astrakhan there are "kremlin" built shortly after their conquest. The main traffic and life in the Volga cities are concentrated on the piers, where the railway lines go and where thousands of workers - "hook workers" load and unload ships. The wide Volga with towing and passenger ships, barges, belyans, rafts, and boats sailing along it in both directions always presents a lively and majestic picture.
Kruber A.A.
Space and surface
The Crimean peninsula is connected to the mainland by a narrow (about 7 versts) Perekop isthmus and occupies less than half of the Taurida province. Its large northern part, almost three-quarters of the entire peninsula, is a continuation of Novorossiya and is no different from the latter. On the contrary, the southern part represents such sharp differences in relief, nature and population that, despite its insignificant size, it stands out as a separate region, which actually bears the name Crimea. This is a small mountainous country, occupying a length of about 107, and a width of about 30 versts; between the mountains and the sea lies a narrow (2 - 8 versts) strip of land - the southern coast of Crimea.
The Crimean mountains in the western part consist of three ridges: the northern, low (up to 250 meters), composed of loose yellow limestone, the second, much higher (up to 575 meters), from soft white, and the third, main ridge or Yayla, their solid gray limestone. The second ridge is strongly eroded by water and in some places is divided into separate table-like mountains.
The main ridge slopes gently to the north and breaks off vertically to the south, so that from the sea it seems like a solid high wall. The top of this ridge is a wavy, grass-covered plane, with a width of several sazhens to 7 versts, in Tatar Yayla (pasture, from which the entire ridge got its name); the highest point of Yayla exceeds 1,500 meters (Roman-Kosh 1543m.). In some places in the ridge there are depressions, "bogazy", through which in some places excellent highways are laid. The deepest bogaz lie near the city of Alushta and separate the high (1523 m) mountain Chatyrdag from the ridge, visible from afar when approaching the Crimean mountains. In its eastern part, Yayla breaks up into separate mountains. Between the ridges and individual mountains in the Crimea lie beautiful fertile valleys (the largest is Baidarskaya, in the western part of the mountains).
In the Crimean mountains, especially in Yaila, as elsewhere, where there are calcareous rocks, karst phenomena are observed; funnels, stalactite caves, deep cracks, narrow pits gradually expanding into the depths, in which the snow accumulated during the winter does not melt all year round.
The surface of Yayla represents an original landscape. All around is a stone sea of gray rocks cracked and corroded by water and wind. Heaped on top of each other, they sometimes resemble the ruins of ancient buildings. The rocks either rise in terraces and ledges, or break off in bizarre cliffs, depressions and larger basins are covered with green, dense and low turf. In some places there are screes and entire fields of stone fragments and rubble.
The southern coast consists of black shales and is in some places cut by short calcareous ridges running from Yayla to the sea. In some places there are domed mountains made of volcanic rocks (Ayu-Dag near Gurzuf). The eastern ledge of Crimea - the Kerch Peninsula is made up of low folded hills, among which mud volcanoes (hills) are scattered. From time to time, from the latter, due to the release of petroleum gases, eruptions of liquid mud occur.
Crimea is very poor in flowing waters. Mountain streams and rivers (the largest Salgir) after rains overflow into stormy devastating streams, and in summer they almost disappear into rubble, and water is extracted from wells there or collected after snow melts in dams.
The slopes of the main ridge of the Crimean Mountains are covered with dense forests - in the north, beech, reaching the very yayla, in the south - mixed, with a predominance of oak and dogwood. Above are pine forests, and the summit plane of Yayla is a grassy carpet, where steppe plants, such as feather grass, are mixed with alpine (alpine), for example, the so-called "Crimean edelweiss". The southern coast, fenced off from the north by a high wall of mountains, by its nature already belongs to the warm Mediterranean region; mild (+4º in January), rainy winters, with rarely falling and quickly melting snow, dry, hot summers, significant rainfall, subtropical vegetation - even some evergreen trees and shrubs: creepers, wood juniper, strawberry tree, jasmine, ivy. Cypresses, laurels, magnolias, oleanders, climbing wisterias, Lebanese cedars and even a fan palm grow in the gardens and parks of the southern coast. Animals are also the Mediterranean region - vultures, chain-legged lizard - gecko, poisonous scorpions and phalanxes.
The population and its activities
Crimea, like the southern part of New Russia, was inhabited in ancient times. In separate table-shaped mountains of the middle ridge, there are numerous caves, entire "cave cities", in which the ancient population of the Crimea lived (and in the 4th - 15th centuries AD, the Germanic people of the Goths). On the banks before R.Kh. there were Greek colonies; in the Middle Ages - Italian (Genoese and Venetian). In the XIV century. Crimea was conquered by the Tatars, and at the end of the XVIII century. Russians. Therefore, the composition of the population is variegated: the majority are Russians, mainly Great Russians; they are followed by Tatars (28%), especially numerous in the Yalta district. Many Armenians and Karaites live in the cities. Along the coast of the Black Sea, especially in the cities, a significant part of the Greeks.
The Karaites - probably the descendants of the Khazars who converted to Judaism - differ from the Jews in their faith (they do not recognize the Talmud) and language (they speak Tatar). The Tatars of the southern part represent the descendants of the former inhabitants - Greeks and Genoese - mixed with the conquering Tatars. This is a tall, swarthy people, with their black eyes, hair and delicate features, more like the inhabitants of southern Europe than the steppe Tatars of the northern part of the Crimea. Nevertheless, the language, religion, customs and customs are the same among the steppe and southern Tatars.
The most important livelihoods of the inhabitants of the southern Crimea are horticulture and viticulture: all the valleys and a significant part of the southern coast are cultivated and planted with fruit trees and vineyards. The best varieties of apples and pears, cherries, apricots, peaches, almonds, walnuts and common nuts (hazelnuts) are bred here. Fruit is exported in large quantities to inland Russia; in the city of Simferopol (provincial city of the Tauride province) there are several factories that produce canned fruit. Grapes are cultivated mainly on the southern coast. The vineyard area is not particularly large, but the wines are of very good quality. The largest vineyards and cellars for aging wine belong to the Specific Department (in Massandra, near Yalta). Tobacco plantations are also significant, especially among the Tatars.
The inhabitants of the mountainous Crimea are mainly engaged in cattle breeding, they breed buffaloes and sheep; large herds of the latter graze in Yayla.
Settlements and communications
Crimea is rarely populated: only the western part of the southern coast has up to 40 people. per 1 sq. verst. The settlements are located in the valleys; Tatars do not have separate houses and estates, they live in villages.
The villages of the mountain and south coast Tatars are very picturesque. They are not infrequently molded along steep slopes; adobe or stone houses with flat roofs - sakli - are always surrounded by a carefully cultivated garden or vegetable garden. In every village there is a fountain with clean spring water drawn from the mountains and a coffee house where men spend all their free time with a cup of black coffee.
The cities of Crimea - Simferopol, Sevastopol, Feodosia, Kerch, with their cleanliness and well-being (excellent pavements, electricity, often a tram) resemble other cities in southern Russia. The last two are of commercial importance; bread is exported from them. Sevastopol is the anchorage of the Black Sea Fleet. Small towns on the slopes of the Crimean mountains, for example, Bakhchisaray, still retained the features of an eastern city: narrow, crooked, dirty streets, open coffee houses, bazaars full of shops - workshops.
Scattered everywhere are ancient monuments belonging to various peoples who inhabited the peninsula. In Kerch and Kherson, excavations revealed the remains of Greek cities with catacombs, frescoes, and utensils. In Sudak, Balaklava and Feodosia, the ruins of Genoese fortresses with towers and walls have been preserved; in Bakhchisarai - ancient mosques and the palace of the Crimean khans. On the Kerch Peninsula there are huge burial mounds, burial grounds of Scythian kings. In Sevastopol and its immediate environs there are many historical monuments related to the famous defense of Sevastopol in 1855-1856.
The southern coast of Crimea, with its mild climate and subtropical vegetation, attracts a lot of people from inner Russia for sea bathing, grape and climatic treatment, as well as simply summer residents and tourists. Therefore, the entire western, warmer part of the South Coast (and recently the eastern part) is covered with many resorts, summer cottages, boarding houses with luxurious parks and houses of beautiful architecture. The most important resorts are Yalta, Alushta, Alupka, Balaklava, Gurzuf; in the northern part of the Crimea Evpatoria with sea bathing and healing mud. A significant part of the southern coast is occupied by large estates belonging to members of the imperial family (Livadia - the estate of the sovereign emperor) and noble aristocracy. The southern coast of Crimea is one of the most beautiful corners of Europe. For us, Russians, this is a relatively close, "real" south. Bright and burning southern sun, almost always cloudless blue sky in summer, blue warm sea, air filled with the aroma of southern flowers. The high, rocky coast is covered with gardens and vineyards, from the greenery of which white houses peep out and cypress trees turn black with sharp arrows, and even further, the bare pinkish-gray cliffs of Yayla, slightly covered with an ashy haze, rise like a sheer wall. A significant part of the coast, however, is still little affected by culture, in such places the slopes of the mountains and the coast itself are deserted for a long stretch, overgrown with low oak forests and various, sometimes thorny shrubs.
Crimea is connected to the rest of Russia by a railway that leads from Kharkov and forks on the peninsula - one branch goes through Simferopol to Sevastopol, the other to Feodosia and Kerch. In the southern part of the peninsula, there are many good highways along which communication is carried out by car. The coastal towns and towns of the South Shore are interconnected by steamboat traffic.
Novorossiya
Kruber A.A.
Space and surface
Novorossia occupies the entire south of European Russia and consists of the provinces: Bessarabian, Kherson, Yekaterinoslav, the Don Army Region and the northern half of the province of Tauride. In terms of area, this is one of the largest regions of European Russia. It got its name from the fact that it was annexed to Russia only later.
According to the relief, Novorossia is divided into two parts: northern and southern. In the northern part of the highlands alternate with lowlands. In the west, from the Romanian border to the Dnieper, lies the Carpathian Upland, ending in the Stone Ridge. Behind it is the wide Dnieper lowland. Further, to the south-west of the Donets, the Donetsk Ridge; even further to the east, the Don Lowland, which includes the spurs of the Central Russian Upland, and, finally, in the very east, on the border with the Saratov and Astrakhan provinces, the Volga Upland. The highest of them is the Carpathian, especially its western part between the Prut and the Dniester (Khotin heights near the Austrian border - up to 500 meters - the highest points of the Russian plain). The Carpathian Upland consists of crystalline rocks - gneisses and granites, which go out along the banks of rivers and deep gullies. The river valleys are cut very deep; the flow of rivers is fast, and in the rivers Bug, Ingul and Dnieper, outcrops of crystalline rocks form pitfalls and rapids. Especially significant are the Dnieper rapids, stretching for 61 versts (from Yekaterinoslav to Aleksandrovsk).
The Dnieper rapids are wide stone ramparts that stretch from one bank to another across the entire river and are dotted with stones from above. In addition to the rapids, there are also "fences" - the same ramparts, but only incomplete - part of the channel remains free, although strewn with stones. There are ten thresholds, and a fence about thirty. In the spring, when all the rapids and fences are covered with water, rafts and barges pass freely through the rapids, but in summer it is very dangerous to swim through the rapids, and after the water has subsided, it is completely impossible.
The Donetsk Ridge is a low plateau that slopes gently to the west and ends abruptly in the northeast and south. This is an ancient folded mountainous country, destroyed, smoothed and covered with a thick layer of loess (the highest point of the Mechetny Kurgan is 369 meters).
The southern part of Novorossia is a flat and smooth lowland, sloping towards the Black and Azov Seas. All of it consists of limestone of recent origin and was formerly occupied by the sea, which communicated with the Caspian through the Manych depression.
In general, almost all of Novorossia is a plain, the monotony of which is broken only by beams - wide valleys with gentle slopes, probably the beds of ancient rivers, mounds, according to the local "grave" - hills filled with ancient inhabitants of the steppes, and ravines, which here are no less than in the Black Earth region. In the northern part of Little Russia, the soil is chernozem, especially rich in the north of the Don Cossack Region, in the south - chestnut and brown soil, saturated with salt in many places.
Seas Black and Azov
The Black Sea belongs to Russia with its northern and eastern parts. The Crimean peninsula protruding from the north is separated from it by the Sea of Azov. The length of the Black Sea is 1130 versts, and the width in the middle part (between the Crimea and the coast of Asia Minor) is about 250 versts. Its northwestern part and the Sea of Azov are shallow; the rest of the main pool - on the contrary, is very deep, up to 2½ versts. The shores of the main basin are almost everywhere formed by mountain ranges, they do not have bays and natural harbors; only in the south-west of the Crimean peninsula, where mountain ranges run into the sea, do some valleys flooded by the sea form convenient and protected bays (Balaklava and, especially, Sevastopol).
The shores of the northwestern part are flat and also devoid of natural bays, so that for the ports located here (Odessa) the harbors had to be created artificially. But they are cut into bays (the largest is Kirkenit). In addition, the mouths of the rivers flowing into them also form bays, the so-called estuaries. Estuaries are flooded river valleys with semi-fresh water and a deep fairway, indicating the course of the river. The estuaries are separated from the sea by a sandy spit "arrow". In such estuaries there are often convenient natural ports (Akkerman - in the Dniester, Nikolaev - in the Bug estuary).
The Black Sea is much saltier than the Baltic, which is why its color is much brighter, blue-green. Nevertheless, since many rivers flow into it, and it is connected with other seas only by the narrow and shallow Bosporus, the water here is still much fresher than in the ocean. The northwestern part of the sea is especially desalinated, where large rivers flow (Danube, Dniester, Dnieper). At the coast of the main basin, the water does not freeze at all, and navigation is carried out all year round. It sometimes freezes off the coast of the northwestern part, but the ice layer is so thin that navigation is supported here with the help of icebreaker steamers. But the estuaries with their fresh water freeze for a longer period, and the movement of ships along them completely stops.
Animal world
The Black Sea is much richer than the Baltic, but poorer than the Barents and Caspian. It is richer and more diverse from the northwestern part, where there are animals that equally tolerate both sea and fresh water. Various sturgeons (beluga, stellate sturgeon, sturgeon, sterlet), Black Sea roach, gobies, herring fish are found here, which are very important in commercial terms. On the contrary, in the main pool, the animal world is very scarce, since deeper than 100 fathoms the water contains hydrogen sulfide, from which animals die. Therefore, all life is concentrated in the surface layer of water: dolphins, some types of fish are found here: mullet, mackerel, tuna.
The Sea of Azov, the smallest of the Russian seas, is connected to the Black Sea by the narrow Kerch Strait. It is very shallow, about 7 fathoms, much fresher than the northwestern part of the Black Sea, and freezes for a longer time. Its shores are shallow and even more abundant with estuaries, known for their healing mud.
The fauna of the Sea of Azov is poorer in marine forms than the northwestern corner of the Black Sea, but richer in freshwater ones; along with sturgeon, carp, pike perch, perch, and bream are found here. The commercial value of the Sea of Azov is greater than that of the Black Sea. 15% of all fish caught in Russia is caught in the Azov and Black Seas.
Due to the southern position of Novorossia, its climate is much warmer than the rest of European Russia, but characteristic features also affect here: it is colder than it should be in latitude, continental, and the eastern parts are much colder and more continental than the western ones. Only in the very south of Bessarabia the average annual temperature reaches +10º. Everywhere the summer is very hot, and the winter, although short, is rather severe, with snow and frost. In the west, in Bessarabia, snow lies for 1-2 months, and on the Don for 4-5 months. The Prut and Dniester freeze for 2-2½ months, and the Don and its tributaries in the northern part of the Don region for 3-4 months. The reason for this is the distribution of winds. The winds here are variable, but both in summer and winter, the northeast wind prevails, bringing frosts in winter, and heat and dryness in summer. In the spring, this wind often causes irreparable damage to the fields, especially in the eastern part of the country. In autumn, it sometimes reaches such strength that it drives water out of the Donskoy estuary, so that the seabed is exposed for a long distance, and the ships that did not have time to leave lie helplessly on their sides. In winter, this wind produces snow drifts, which sometimes stop railway traffic for several days and entire trains fall asleep. When in winter the northeast wind blows after a thaw (especially from the western, warmer part of the country), sleet sets in, all objects are covered with a layer of ice. Trees break under its weight, telegraph wires break, poles fall. The ice crust covering city streets and railroad tracks makes communication difficult, and if at this time cattle graze on pasture, animals, especially sheep, starve to death in droves.
Due to the predominance of dry wind, there is little precipitation in Novorossia, less in the east than in the west. In the eastern part, droughts and related crop failures are not uncommon. Due to the absence of forests and the permeability of the subsoil, spring moisture does not linger, and in summer most of the rivers of the region cease to be navigable, and the largest rivers of the region become so shallow that navigation on them is very difficult.
Due to the same dryness of the climate, the whole of Novorossia is a steppe, and only in the northern half of Bessarabia are beech forests found. However, the feather grass and wormwood steppes, which even in the last century occupied vast areas (and sometimes covered the entire country), are now destroyed and turned to a greater extent into arable land. "Virgin land" was preserved in small patches only by large landowners, and in some places by the Don Cossacks.
In the first half of summer, the landscape in Novorossia is quite beautiful; an endless sea of grain, alternating with bright yellow fields of sunflowers, green melons and a motley carpet of flowering deposits. In the second half of the summer, after mowing and harvesting, the entire steppe burns out and is a black dusty desert, through which cattle wander despondently, eating up the last remnants of vegetation.
The population and its activities
Most of Novorossia was settled rather late - after joining Russia in the 18th century. By that time, a settled population existed only in Bessarabia and along the banks of the Don and Dnieper, where “free people” who had fled from the Moscow and Polish-Lithuanian states settled. In addition, along the shores of the Azov and Black seas and the rivers flowing into them, there are a number of Turkish fortress cities that have survived to this day (Azov, Ochakov, Akkerman, Bendery, Izmail). Having annexed the region, Catherine II began to distribute empty lands to the nobles, who began to settle their serfs there, and invited immigrants from abroad: Germans, Bulgarians, Serbs and Greeks. And so far, the population here is not particularly dense. A very significant part of the land belongs to large landowners (it is not uncommon to have estates of several tens of thousands of acres), and nowhere in European Russia is there a population more diverse in composition. The majority of the population are Little Russians; they are followed by the Great Russians, who live mainly in the Taurida province and the region of the Don Cossacks. The remaining nationalities make up less than a fifth of the total population. Of these, the most numerous Moldavians are in Bessarabia; German colonists in southern Bessarabia and the Tauride province. Jews live in the cities, mainly to the west of the Dnieper, and Greeks in the coastal cities. In addition, vast lands in the Zadonsk steppe belong to the Kalmyks, who, however, constitute an insignificant percentage of the inhabitants. Finally, gypsies roam throughout the region.
Among the Russian population, the Don Cossacks stand out. The region of the Don Army inhabited by them has a very special administration. Cossacks are considered military all their lives and form special Cossack regiments in the army. The region is governed by a military governor, who is at the same time the chief - the "taman chieftain" of the Don Cossack army.
The whole region is divided into districts corresponding to districts, districts into "yurts" (volosts), yurts into farms (corresponding to rural communities). At the head of each district, yurt or farm is an elected ataman. Large settlements are called villages. Almost a quarter of all the land in the region belongs to the entire army. Like the military, the Cossacks wear uniforms at home - a white shirt, blue pants with red stripes and a cap with a red band. Each Cossack must come to the service with his horse. They are all good riders.
Novorossia is the richest region of Russia and its natural wealth is very diverse. The first place among them is fertile chernozem and chestnut soil. Rich deposits of coal, iron, manganese and mercury ore, rock salt are hidden in the bowels of the earth; river mouths and estuaries are rich in fish; finally, the position of the region on the seashore is very advantageous for trade.
The main source of livelihood of the population is agriculture. At the same time, in Novorossia, as in the Chernozem region, large-scale agriculture prevails. Almost half of all land here belongs to large landowners, who often own over 10-15 thousand acres of land. But the peasants here also have large allotments. About half of all households have over 10 acres of land. Due to the large amount of land and the fertility of the soil, the so-called fallow farming system still exists in many places. Only in the western part of the country, where the population is denser, is it gradually being replaced by a multi-field system among the landowners, and by a three-field system among the peasants.
With the "fallow" or "laying" system, a plot of land is plowed for several years in a row, and then they move to another plot, and the former one is left to rest, for 15-20 years.
Such a site, called a “fallow land” or a “fracture”, is overgrown with weeds in the first year, the next year steppe grasses appear, which displace weeds and the earth gradually rests, again accumulating a sufficient amount of humus in the soil, then it is plowed again. The deposit is called "steppe" by the locals and is used by the locals for mowing. The land here is still so fertile that the fields are not fertilized. Processing is carried out with metal plows, and when harvesting grain and hay, not only landowners, but also peasants use improved tools: reapers, mowers, threshers, winnowing machines. The main bread is wheat, which occupies almost half of the entire area, and barley, which replaces oats here. In Bessarabia, the main bread is corn, and in the Don region, along with wheat, winter rye and millet (from which millet is made) are sown. So much bread is cultivated here that not only is enough to feed the population, but wheat is exported in huge quantities abroad through the ports of the Black and Azov Seas: Odessa, Kherson, Rostov-on-Don, Taganrog. In addition to bread, sunflowers and flax are sown in large quantities in the fields for seeds, from which oil is extracted. Significant tracts of land are also occupied by melons and melons - fields planted with watermelons and melons. The Novorossiysk Territory already lies so far to the south that it is possible to grow grapes and wine on a large scale here. It is most developed in the southern districts of Bessarabia, where in some places it is the main source of livelihood for the population, and along the Don, along the high right bank of the river (the villages of Tsymlyanskaya and Razdorskaya). In Bessarabia, industrial gardening is very developed: every peasant has at least a small orchard, and landowners often have gardens of 10 or more acres. Plums, pears, apples, apricots are bred.
The fallow and multi-field system of agriculture, the abundance of grass and fodder, lead to a great development of cattle breeding. The main livestock here is cattle, which serve here both for work and for fattening for meat. Sheep are also bred a lot, mostly coarse-wooled among the peasants, and often fine-fleeced among the landowners. In the Don region there is an extensive horse breeding. Finally, nomadic Kalmyks breed camels and fat-tailed sheep.
The second source of livelihood of the population after agriculture is mining. Two places in Novorossia are especially rich in useful minerals - the Donetsk Ridge and the western part of the Stone Ridge. In the Donetsk Ridge, in the adjacent parts of the Yekaterinoslav province and the Don Cossack Region, coal and its best grade, anthracite, are mined. The main mines are located near the city of Aleksandrovsk-Grushevsky. In the Stone Ridge, in the adjacent parts of the provinces of Kherson and Yekaterinoslav, the largest amount of iron ore of the highest quality is mined; the booty near the town of Krivoy Rog is especially great. Significantly less ore is mined in the Donetsk Ridge. In terms of coal and iron production, Novorossiya ranks first in Russia. After the extraction of coal and iron, the extraction of salt is of greatest importance; The richest salt deposits (over 40 sazhens thick) are located near the city of Bakhmut. Here, part of it is broken in the mines, partly boiled down from brine, which is pumped out of deep wells. A lot of self-planting salt is also extracted from closed estuaries along the shores of the Black and Azov Seas.
Of great importance is also the extraction of mercury ore (cinnabar) near Nikitovka in the Donetsk Ridge and manganese ore near Nikopol on the Dnieper.
The Donetsk Ridge presents an interesting picture. On the surface of a completely flat chernozem steppe, here and there rise tall chimneys of mines and factories, blast furnaces, gates, with the help of which coal is lifted from the mines, whole mountains of coal, ore and "empty" (not containing coal or ore) rock. It can be seen in the railroad tracks that the layers of limestone, sandstone and slate, of which the terrain is composed, lie obliquely, forming folds, and are only covered from above by a horizontally lying loess. On the outskirts of the Donetsk Ridge, especially on the banks of rivers, sloping or vertical layers of sandstone and shale come out, forming a picturesque mountain landscape. Houses are molded along the steep, rocky slopes, rocks stick out everywhere, overgrown with grass and shrubs. Everywhere is stone, from the slabs of which houses, sheds, fences are built, roofs are covered and yards are paved.
In connection with the natural wealth of the region, industry is mainly aimed at processing agricultural products (steam and windmills, distilleries, breweries and oil mills) - more than half of the entire production of the region, and iron (iron-smelting, steel, machine-building, agricultural tools and etc.), - mainly in the Kherson and Yekaterinoslav provinces. Particularly large are the iron-smelting and ironworks, which smelt and process more than half of all the iron mined in Russia. Since most of these plants are located in the Donetsk Ridge, where there is a lot of fuel and relatively little ore, the Donetsk Ridge is connected with Krivoy Rog, rich in ore, by two railways - the North-Ekaterininsky, going through Yekaterinoslavl, and the South-Ekaterininsky, through Aleksandrovsk. Although the Don factories exist relatively recently, entire settlements with tens of thousands of inhabitants have formed around many of them, for example, Yuzovka in the Yekaterinoslav province; the largest plant for the smelting of cast iron and iron - the Aleksandrovsky plant near Yekaterinoslav - the second largest in Russia in size, and plants in the city of Lugansk.
Settlements and communications
In Novorossiya, as in a predominantly agricultural country, the rural population considerably exceeds the urban population; out of 100 people, only 17 live in cities, and only in the Kherson province about 30. The type of settlements resembles Little Russia and the Chernozem region. These are mostly vast, numbering thousands of inhabitants, villages; they also cling to the water, located either along the course of rivers and streams, or along the beams, where it is easier to dig wells and ponds to retain spring and rain water.
You can drive for many hours across the steppe, which seems completely deserted, but meanwhile it turns out to be nearby, in a deep gully along some stream, villages and villages stretched out into an endless ribbon, and one village begins where another ends, almost directly continuing each other . Due to the dryness of the climate and the lack of wood, the houses here are adobe or adobe huts, covered with straw or reeds, with an earthen floor, as in Little Russia, or yellow, smeared with clay - among the Moldavians and Cossacks; in the Kherson and Bessarabian provinces, huts are often painted blue.
Wooden houses with iron roofs come across mainly among the Don Cossacks. As in Little Russia, yards with gardens and orchards are surrounded by wattle fences. Among the rest of the villages, German colonies stand out sharply, with hidden brick or stone houses, covered with tiles, with solid stone fences. The forest here is even rarer and more expensive than in the Chernozem region; therefore, dried dung-dung is often used as fuel.
The geographical position, convenient for trade, and a highly developed factory industry contributed to the formation of large cities and settlements. There are a number of large cities in Novorossiya, of which six have more than 100 thousand inhabitants: Odessa (the fourth city in Russia - 650 thousand inhabitants), Yekaterinoslavl, Rostov-on-Don, Chisinau, Nikolaev and Elisavetgrad. The main value of all of them is trading. Through the cities of the coast, in addition to bread, manganese ore, flaxseed, alcohol and coal are exported; colonial goods and southern fruits are brought in. From the inner cities, Ekaterinoslav conducts an extensive timber trade. For the western half of the south of Russia, this is the same important timber market as Tsaritsyn is for the east.
With the exception of Bessarabia, all the big cities are new - built after the annexation of the region, with straight streets intersecting at right angles, and devoid of ancient monuments. Nevertheless, the southern Russian cities are very beautiful: wide, clean streets lined with trees (white locust). Beautiful pavements paved with granite bars, wide sidewalks, animated in the evenings by a motley, often multilingual crowd, a lot of cafes and restaurants where they eat right on the street, many beautiful new buildings - all this makes the cities of Novorossia more like the cities of southern Europe than the cities inner Russia. Large cities of the region are cultural centers and have higher educational institutions. Thus, there is a university in Odessa, a mining institute in Yekatinoslavl, and a polytechnic school in Novocherkassk. In Bessarabia, along the Dniester River, there are a number of insignificant towns in which the remains of ancient Turkish fortresses have been preserved; these are the county towns: Akkerman, Khotyn, Bendery. In the western part of the region, as well as neighboring Little Russia, there are many places - urban settlements built on private lands, inhabited mostly by Jews, poor, dirty, and cramped.
Novorossiya has a large network of railways; it is denser in the industrial parts of the region (in the Donetsk Ridge this network is as dense as anywhere else in Russia) and less frequently in purely agricultural ones. Several trunk lines terminate in Novorossia, leading from inner Russia to the ports of the Azov and Black Seas: Kiev - Odessa, Kharkov - Nikolaev - Kherson, Kharkov - Sevastopol, Kharkov - Taganrog - Rostov. Of the lines leading abroad, the most important goes from Odessa through Bendery to the city of Reni, which lies on the Danube opposite the Romanian city of Galati, and through Chisinau to the Romanian city of Iasi. A very important means of communication between the western and eastern parts of the region is the sea (the most important lines are: Rostov - Kerch - Feodosia and from Odessa to the ports of the Crimea and the Caucasus). Finally, navigable rivers are of great importance for the movement of goods: the Dnieper, Don, Dniester, Danube, along which sea steamers run from Odessa to Galati.
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Peter and Paul Cathedral, located on the territory of the Peter and Paul Fortress, is one of the symbols of the city on the Neva. Rising on the Hare Island, connected to the Petrogradskaya side by the Ioannovsky Bridge, it is perfectly visible from any point on the embankment and constantly serves as a permanent object for photographing by numerous tourists and residents of Northern Palmyra. One of the central elements of the cathedral is the figure of a flying angel on a three-tiered bell tower, crowning a grandiose spire, specially ordered by the royal will and executed by the Dutch master virtuoso Harman van Bolos, who worked hard for the glory of the cultural capital.
The laying of the cathedral itself took place on May 30, 1712. The author of the project was the outstanding architect Dominico Trezzini, who worked on it for 20 years. The building was erected on the site of an old wooden church, and after a fire that occurred in the 70s of the 18th century, many important structural elements underwent changes. The main advantage of the interior today is the gilded carved iconostasis, created by Ivan Zarudny, as well as carvers Trofim Ivanov and Ivan Telega. The icon painters were Andrei Merkuliev Pospelov and Philip Artemyev Protopopov. On the walls and ceiling, the attention is drawn to the paintings on the gospel scenes, painted mainly by domestic painters.
In the post-revolutionary years, the cathedral was taken over by the Museum of the Revolution, and in the period from 1930 to 1940, the warehouse of the Central Book Chamber was located here. In 1954, the cathedral passed to the State Museum of the History of Leningrad. For many years, the temple also personified the glory of Russian weapons, keeping trophy banners, as well as the keys to captured fortresses and cities. At the beginning of the 20th century, these holy relics were added to the collection of the Hermitage. You can admire the city from the observation deck of the bell tower, located at a height of 42 meters.
Another significant object of the cathedral is the Grand Ducal Tomb, where representatives of the Russian imperial house are buried, including Peter I, Grand Duchess Ekaterina Petrovna, Princess Marfa Matveevna, Empress Elizabeth Petrovna, Nicholas II and members of his family, as well as other Russian rulers and royal persons. Nowadays, the Peter and Paul Cathedral enjoys great attention not only among numerous tourists, but also among St. Petersburg residents themselves. The excursion program around the territory of the Peter and Paul Fortress necessarily includes a visit to this place and allows you to learn a lot of interesting things not only about the building itself, but also about the history
Peter-Pavel's Fortress .
Baroque
Cathedral of St. Apostles Peter and Paul - Peter and Paul Cathedral
Memory arch. (federal)
1712-1733 - architect. Trezzini Domenico
see Peter and Paul Fortress ( continuation)
The height of the cathedral is 122.5 m, the spire is 40 m. The cathedral is consecrated, services are performed according to a special schedule, and the rest of the time it functions as a museum.
The wooden church of St. Apostles Peter and Paul was founded on June 29 (July 12), 1703 on St. Peter's Day in the center of Hare Island. The temple with a bell tower in the form of a pointed tower in the "Dutch style" was consecrated on April 1, 1704. In 1709-1710. the church became cruciform in terms of "three spitz" and was expanded.
The construction of a new stone cathedral began on June 8, 1712, according to the project of D. Trezzini. In 1719, under the leadership of the Dutchman H. van Boleos, the assembly of the wooden structures of the spire of the bell tower was completed. In 1724, the spire and the small dome of the bell tower were covered with copper sheets gilded through fire by the Riga master F Cifers. According to Trezzini's drawing, a copper cross with the figure of a flying angel was made and installed above the apple of the spire. The height of the bell tower was 106 m.
This is a three-aisled temple. A bell tower was erected over the western span of the middle nave, and an octagonal drum over the eastern one. In the design of the facades, the idea of a smooth transition from the first tier to the second was used through the introduction of side volutes. A copper plaque by artists A. Matveev and A. Zakharov depicting the apostles Peter and Paul was placed in the attic. Wooden sculptures were installed above the attic, completed with a bowed pediment. The oval window in the lower part of the eastern facade is decorated with a stucco image of cherubs in the clouds. The facades of the cathedral in the 1730s. were dyed pink.
The wooden church of St. app.
Peter and Paul.
Rice. N. Chelnakova, 1770s
Cathedral of St. app. Petra
and Pavel. 1841
Lithograph A. Duran.
Rise of P. Telushkin
on the steeple of the bell tower.
From the engraving of the beginning. 1830s
Photo -
S. M. Prokudin-Gorsky,
early 20th century
View of Petropavlovsk
Cathedral before the restructuring of 1858
Added - .
Cathedral plan.
New bell for the cathedral
St. Apostles Peter and Paul.
1905
Raising the bell
to the bell tower
Petropavlovsk
Cathedral, 1905.
Withdrawal
camouflage
cover from the dome.
1944
Added - .
In 1756, a fire destroyed the wooden spire and roof, the clock and bells were destroyed, and the western portico was destroyed. In 1757, master builder A. Antonietti erected a brick dome topped with an onion dome over the altar according to a drawing by V. V. Fermar. The facades were painted greyish-green. Since 1762, the bell tower was restored by the Office for the construction of the Alexander Nevsky Monastery. By order of Catherine II - in the previous forms. The laying of stone tiers was completed in 1770. According to the design of the Danish master B.P. Bauer, in 1773 a new wooden spire was erected, lined with gilded copper sheets. The chimes, made by the watchmaker B. F. Oort Crass in Holland in 1757-1760, were installed in 1776 by the watchmaker I. E. Rediger.
In 1777 the spire was damaged by a storm. The correction was carried out according to the drawings of arch. P. Yu. Paton. The new figure of an angel with a cross according to the drawing by A. Rinaldi was made by master K. Forshman.
In 1778, under the leadership of Academician Leonard Euler, work was carried out to equip the spire with a lightning rod.
In 1779, in the western part of the cathedral, the chapel of St. Catherine. The ceiling of the chapel was painted in 1830 by I. E. and F. A. Pavlovs.
At the beginning of the XIX century. century in the cathedral repair work was carried out with the participation of arch. L. Ruska, D. Visconti, A. I. Melnikov, I. I. Charlemagne, artists V. K. Shebuev and D. I. Antonelli.
In 1829, a storm damaged the figure of the angel on the spire again. Roofer Petr Telushkin made repairs without erecting scaffolding. The repair, carried out in October-November 1830, went down in the history of domestic technology as an example of Russian ingenuity and courage.
In 1856-1858. according to the project of engineer D. I. Zhuravsky, instead of a wooden one, a metal spire was built. Inside the spire, a spiral iron staircase leads to a hatch in the casing, arranged at a height of 100 m above the apple, a six-meter cross with an angel (sculptor R.K. Zaleman?) An angel-weather vane rotates around a rod installed in the plane of the figure itself. The volumetric parts of the angel are made by electroforming, the rest of the parts are stamped from forged copper. Gilding was carried out under the guidance of the chemist G. Struve by the gang of merchants Korotkovs. Angel height - 3.2 m, wingspan - 3.8 m
At the same time, the chimes were overhauled. The work was done by the Butenop brothers. Since 1859, the chimes played the music of the composer D. Bortnyansky every fifteen minutes, and at noon and midnight - the anthem "God Save the Tsar", written by A.F. Lvov.
In 1911, the facades were repainted in a sandy color.
The silhouette of the elongated bell tower after the reconstruction became very spectacular, it is hard to believe that the changes were made by one engineer without architectural and artistic education and experience.
After the revolution, services were stopped, and in 1919 the public was banned from entering the cathedral. In 1927 the building of the cathedral was transferred to the Museum of the Revolution. Since 1954 it has belonged to the Museum of the History of Leningrad. In 1955-1957. According to the project of I. N. Benois, a scientific restoration was carried out. In 1987-1995 artists L. N. Sokolov and Yu. I. Trushin restored paintings and icons. In 1991-1995, the angel and the cross were restored. In 1996-1998 Catherine's chapel was restored according to the project of arch. A. E. Gunich and S. S. Nalivkina. The family of the last Russian Emperor Nicholas II is buried there.
In 1999-2001 the figure of the angel was restored again.
(based on materials , , )
Decree of the President of the Russian Federation of February 20, 1995 No. 176 "On the establishment of a list of objects of historical and cultural heritage of Federal (All-Russian) significance:Historical and cultural reserve "Peter and Paul Fortress -State Museum of the History of St. Petersburg"
Decree of the Government of the Russian Federation of 10.07. 2001 No. 527: Peter and Paul Fortress: Fr. Hare, Peter and Paul Fortress
For those who nevertheless went to the most unusual monument to Peter, some facts about the Peter and Paul Fortress will be of interest, from the foundation of which the history of St. Petersburg began.
1. Fortress - The core of the city, its root, its foundation. It was from the Hare Island that the history of St. Petersburg began. It is the day the fortress was founded - May 16 (27 according to the new style) in 1703 - that is considered the day of the city's foundation.
De Guerin was one of the most promising foreigners in the Russian service. For example, he participated in the successful capture of Narva in 1704. But then de Guerin escaped, he was even arrested, then he changed his mind, asked Peter the Great for forgiveness - he refused.
2. Botny house
The boat was built in 1688 and was called "Saint Nicholas". It was on it that Peter the Great learned to sail and began to comprehend the complex nautical science.
The boat, as the "grandfather of the Russian fleet", was then preserved, and in 1766 it was transported from Moscow to St. Petersburg, where a special house was built for it. Prior to that, he stood on a special pedestal in the Kremlin: Peter the Great himself erected it as a monument there on the occasion of the Nishtad Peace Treaty.
Previously, the cannon on the Sovereign's bastion fired at the time of the start and end of work. The midday shot was invented at all in Sevastopol, and the tradition reached St. Petersburg only in 1865.
The tradition was interrupted for more than 20 years in 1934. Then it was resumed in connection with the 250th anniversary of the city. Several times the cannon was fired at odd times. For example, in honor of the return of the Aurora from the docks. Now not only an officer on duty can fire a howitzer, but also, for example, an honorary citizen of the city.
4. Peter and Paul Cathedral
At first there was a wooden temple, built in half a year in 1703-1704. The current stone cathedral was built according to the project of Domenico Trezzini in 1710. And to this day it is one of the tallest buildings in St. Petersburg. During construction, for the convenience of workers, Peter the Great even suggested making an elevator inside the bell tower. But in the end, they got away with it.
At first, the temple was supposed to be crowned with an ordinary cross, but in the end, Trezzini proposed to install an angel holding a cross on the spire. The original version differs markedly from the modern one. Then the angel held on to the cross with both hands. The current version appeared at the end of the 19th century.
5. "Chronicle of catastrophic floods"
After the Neva pier was ennobled in the 1780s, marks began to be left in the arch leading to it, associated with the most serious floods in the history of the city.
Now there are the highest points of water rise in 1752, 1777, 1788, 1824, 1924 and 1974.
6. Mint
Commemorative signs, medals and coins are still being printed here. And it all began with the Grenadier Bastion, where in 1724 the minting of coins was transferred from Moscow.
A large building in the late classicist style for the mint was built only in 1806. After that, it was here until 1941 that absolutely all the medals and decorations of the Russian Empire and then the Soviet Union were printed. Only with the beginning of the Blockade, part of the production was transferred to Krasnokamensk, and part was organized on the territory of Moscow. Most of the employees of the Leningrad Mint went to the front.
The building itself, at the same time, organically joined the ensemble of the Peter and Paul Fortress. In many ways - because of its architectural simplicity.
7. Prison of the Peter and Paul Fortress
The main political prison of several eras. Planting in the Trubetskoy bastion and Alekseevsky ravelin began almost immediately after the construction of the fortress. One of the first prisoners was Tsarevich Alexei. Here sat Princess Tarakanova, Radishchev. In 1825, the prison of the Peter and Paul Fortress received participants in the Decembrist uprising, and 40 years later Chernyshevsky ended up here, who was finishing his famous manifesto "What to do?"
The famous prison of the Trubetskoy Bastion, which has now become a museum, has received almost two thousand political prisoners in 40 years since the 1870s. Then the revolutionaries were replaced by former ministers of the Provisional Government, followed by members of the royal family, who were soon shot. And then, with the beginning of the Red Terror, the executions of new political prisoners became massive, the remains of those killed are found during excavations to this day.
8. Museum of Cosmonautics
The choice of such an unusual location for the museum of cosmonautics is not accidental: in the 1920s, the famous gas-dynamic laboratory was located here, where the future geniuses of aeronautics and rocket science conducted their experiments: Glushko (the museum was later named after him), Tikhomirov, Langemak, Petropavlovsky, Artemiev and other.
Now there is one of the most representative expositions in Russia related to the history of space exploration: from the first Kibalchich guns to tubes of food for astronauts, as well as suits, helmets and other things that we usually see only on TV.
9. Ioannovsky bridge
In its place was the very first bridge built in St. Petersburg. It was floating and placed on small barges: if surrounded by the Swedes, the crossing could easily be burned.
Subsequently, when the Peter and Paul Fortress ceased to be a defensive structure, the old crossing was replaced with a new one, wooden, on a stone base. For a long time the bridge was named Petrovsky, at the end of the 19th century it became Ioannovsky.
Since it is still wooden, it is not allowed to smoke here. In addition, next to one of the supports there is a figurine of a hare, installed in 2003, on the pedestal of which it is customary to throw coins: for good luck.