Rostov Veliky

The highway from Moscow to Yaroslavl, although tattered and mercilessly polluted by heavy traffic, still gives a sense of the forested lands that once stretched endlessly to the northeast of the Moscow River. It is all too possible that the dense forest cover on both sides of the road will eventually give way to tawdry development, yet the groves of birch, pine, fir, and aspen convey not only the beauty of the landscape but also thoughts of the rich history that unfolded in this part of Russia. Along this ancient path, which passes through the medieval towns of Sergiev Posad and Pereslavl-Zalessky, there is no more imposing site than the towers and cupolas of Rostov Veliky, Rostov the Great.

Fortunately, most automobile traffic bypasses the historical core of this small city (population approx. 31,000). As one approaches along the Moscow highway from the south, a smaller road splits off to the right, through a grassy marsh on the fringes of Lake Nero. In the distance gleam the cupolas of the recently restored Savior St. James (Spaso-Yakovlevsky) Monastery, situated on the shores of the lake. From there the road turns into quiet streets that lead to Rostov’s main architectural ensemble, the majestic kremlin or, as it is more properly known, the Court of the Metropolitan. (After the Patriarch, “metropolitan” is the highest ecclesiastical rank in the Russian Orthodox Church.) Although most of the ensemble was not built until the 17th century, this mighty citadel immediately conveys a sense of Rostov’s turbulent history.

Rostov is one of the earliest historically attested towns in Russia, first mentioned under the year 862 in the ancient chronicle “Tale of Bygone Years.” Throughout the 10th century, Slavic settlers—primarily from the Novgorod lands—moved into this area, already sparsely inhabited by Finno-Ugric tribes. So far as we know, this merging of the two peoples was relatively peaceful, and produced the characteristic population of central Russia, which still has many placenames of Finno-Ugric origin.

In 988, Prince Vladimir of Kiev, the Christianizer of Russia, gave the Rostov lands to one of his sons, Yaroslav, who subsequently became the Kievan prince known as “the Wise.” By the middle of the 11th century, the Rostov area had passed to Yaroslav’s son Vsevolod, and Christian missionaries intensified their efforts to convert a still largely pagan population. Indeed, one of the earliest Orthodox martyrs in northern Russia was Leonty, the first bishop of Rostov, who was killed in 1071 during an uprising of local pagans enraged by the destruction of idols.

Rostov first received the designation “Veliky” (the Great) in the 12th century, during the reign of Yuri Dolgoruky, founder of Moscow and prince of the Vladimir-Suzdal lands. After Yuri’s death in 1157, Rostov came under the control of his son, the bold Prince Andrei Bogolyubsky. Although best known for his beautiful white stone churches in and around Vladimir (see Russian Life, February 1998), Andrei also built the first stone cathedral in Rostov, on the site of an earlier church built of oak logs. (There are other references to oak churches in medieval Russian chronicles. If only we knew what they looked like! Alas, medieval chronicles give almost no information on such matters. But one can take a measure of the extent of oak’s use in construction during the medieval period: oak forests that once extended from France into the central part of Russia had almost vanished by the 18th century.)

Following Andrei Bogolyubsky’s assassination in 1175, his half brother Vsevolod III assumed power in the Vladimir region; in 1186 the Rostov territory went to Vsevolod’s son Konstantin, who for a brief period made Rostov the power center of northeast Russia. The fragile unity of the extensive Vladimir-Rostov-Suzdalian lands was fractured by a struggle between Konstantin and his brother Yuri, who theoretically ruled this territory from the city of Vladimir. In 1207 Konstantin assumed the status of ruler over a separate Rostov principality, and in 1214 he supported the establishment of another episcopate in that city—all to the detriment of his brother Yuri.

The complex political maneuvering between the two brothers soon led to open conflict, which culminated in a battle on the River Lipitsa in 1216. Yuri’s forces from Vladimir were supported by three of his brother-princes; but the victory went to Konstantin of Rostov, who received additional support from the principality of Novgorod. Ultimately, however, there was no clear victor.

Historians still debate the significance of this obscure medieval battle. Was it a tragically failed, premature attempt to unite the Russian lands under the leadership of Prince Yuri of Vladimir—an attempt undercut by the perfidious politics of Novgorod, which wanted independence from central Russia? Or was it a healthy development which might have encouraged local initiative and the more rapid settlement of new lands to the east? This debate seems to be continually repeated in Russian history, even to this day: is it better to have strongly centralized power or local autonomy?

In any event, Yuri was exiled to Suzdal (see Russian Life, Dec/Jan 1998), which became the center of his courtly life. The victorious Konstantin moved from Rostov to Vladimir, but his reign as grand prince soon ended, with his death in 1219. Ironically, Yuri then returned to Vladimir as sole prince, but his power had been seriously weakened by the earlier defeat. Soon all the central Russian principalities would be submerged in the terror of the Mongol conquest, which swept through Rostov and neighboring towns in a tide of slaughter and pillage. Many historians, particularly during the Soviet period, argued that the disunity stemming from the Lipitsa battle proved fatal to Russia’s ability to resist the invasion, but it is likely that no force available to the Russian princes at that time could have withstood the superior military craft of the Mongols.

Unfortunately, nothing has survived of Rostov’s moment of political importance in early medieval Russia. Unlike Vladimir, Suzdal, and Pereslavl-Zalessky, Rostov contains not a single limestone church from the 12th and 13th centuries, even though Andrei Bogolyubsky’s cathedral dedicated to the Dormition of Mary had been rebuilt by Konstantin in 1213. We know that Konstantin built other stone churches in Rostov (one of which was dedicated to the early Russian martyrs Boris and Gleb), and there were legends about a palace that Konstantin had built. Only in 1955 did the prominent archeologist Nikolai Voronin discover traces of Konstantin’s residence, built of layers of thin stone. The early stone churches, together with Konstantin’s residence and the Monasteries of St. Gregory and John the Baptist, formed a kremlin, or citadel, protected by earthen ramparts and a moat.

Although the Mongols burned much of Rostov when they captured it in 1237, the cathedral and monasteries remained. Indeed, Rostov gained new significance as a center of church-supported culture during a time when so much else had been destroyed. One especially moving testament to this activity is the story of Princess Maria, wife of Prince Vasilko of Rostov. After the death of his father Konstantin, in 1219, Vasilko became ruler of a much smaller Rostov principality. At the beginning of 1238, Vasilko was among the princes killed in battle near the River Seet, in a desperate attempt to halt the Mongols before they reached the city of Vladimir. (Incidentally, the leader of the Russian forces, the grand prince of Vladimir, was none other than the ill-fated Yuri, who had been defeated by Vasilko’s father, Konstantin, at the Lipitsa battle in 1216.)

Upon hearing of the death of Vasilko, Princess Maria decided to take monastic vows, and became a major patron of monastic life and learning in Rostov. In addition to providing the resources to establish the Monastery of the Savior on the Sands (also known as the Knyaginin, or Princess, Monastery), Maria also supported the writing of an important chronicle, comprised of the lives of Russian princes killed by the Mongols. This endeavor gained special poignancy not only due to the death of her husband, but also because of the tragic fate of her father, Prince Michael of Chernigov, who was killed during an obligatory trip to the Mongols of the Golden Horde. Princess Maria herself lived to an old age. Upon her death, in 1271, she was buried next to her son Gleb in the Savior Monastery that she had founded. The life of Princess Maria is a reminder of the active role played by women in sustaining medieval Russian culture during such difficult times.

In the 14th century Rostov continued to be a major center of religious learning in Russia. For example, the Monastery of St. Gregory (which no longer exists) served as a training institution for missionaries, particularly those working in the Russian North. From this monastery emerged such notable pioneers as St. Stephan of Perm, whose religious calling first manifested itself during his youth in the northern town of Veliky Ustyug (see Russian Life, July 1997). In the latter part of the 14th century, he spread the Orthodox faith among the Komi tribes, over a vast territory that extended into the Ural Mountains. The same monastery also produced Epiphanius the Wise, a late 14th-century chronicler known for his beautifully written lives of Russian saints such as Stephan of Perm and Sergius of Radonezh.

But the most visible expression of Rostov’s greatness as a religious and cultural center is its church architecture, of which the most impressive example is the Cathedral of the Dormition of Mary, created perhaps as early as the late 15th century, on the site of two earlier limestone versions of the cathedral built by Andrei Bogolyubsky and Konstantin in the 12th and 13th centuries. The design of the new cathedral incorporated elements of the pre-Mongol style of the Vladimir region—in some cases quite literally, because decorative fragments of the 13th-century Rostov cathedral were placed into the brick walls of the new structure.

The new Rostov Dormition Cathedral was also influenced by the Dormition Cathedral in the Moscow Kremlin, which in turn derived much of its exterior detail from the 12th-century Dormition Cathedral in Vladimir (see Russian Life, February 1998). The blind arcade outlined beneath the windows in the second tier of the Rostov cathedral is a motif from Vladimir reinterpreted in the manner of the 15th century. With no structural purpose, the arcading displays decorative details (on the column shafts and the pointed arches) characteristic of early 15th-century Muscovite churches. Indeed, the limestone arcading, with its capitals in the form of sheaves of grain, not only imitates the pattern of the Annunciation Cathedral in the Moscow Kremlin, but also derives from carved decoration typical of Russian wooden architecture. The influence of Moscow’s cathedrals is further visible in the five large cupolas above the building.

The rebuilding of the Rostov Cathedral, perhaps begun in the reign of Ivan III and continued by Vasily III and Ivan the Terrible in the 16th century, was an event of much significance, a demonstration of Moscow’s dominant political position in Russia as well as its determination to enhance the ancient centers of Russian religious culture. Alas, the interior of the cathedral is currently devastated. Although some fresco restoration took place in the late Soviet period, a fire left the interior with bare, blackened walls. Restoration sponsored by the Orthodox Church is now underway, but it is a daunting task. Fortunately, the frescoes of the surrounding churches are much better preserved.

In 1589 Rostov’s stature as a religious center increased with its elevation from an episcopate to a metropolitanate. Not coincidentally, this important event occurred in the same year that the Patriarch of the Orthodox Church in Constantinople agreed to bestow the rank of Patriarch on the head of the leader of the Russian Orthodox Church, centered in Moscow. Thus Russian Orthodoxy received equal standing with other Orthodox Churches, which by that time were in lands occupied by the Turks. With this new status came the expansion of the church hierarchy—including the creation of the Rostov Metropolitanate. Concurrently, the Dormition Cathedral was enlarged a final time.

Soon thereafter, central Russia was beset by another period of turbulence—the dynastic struggle known as the Time of Troubles. As part of the general devastation of the land, Rostov was plundered in 1609 by a large detachment from Polish forces occupying Moscow. As the country began to recover, new walls were built around many monasteries and towns that had suffered attacks. Rostov was no exception. In 1631 a Dutch engineer named Jan Cornelius began a new earthen citadel in the manner of contemporary European fortifications. Around the fortress extended the market area and the various neighborhoods, each of which had its parish church. Rostov soon regained its place as a provincial center for trade, fishing, and agriculture.

Yet, during the second half of the 17th century, this quiet town witnessed another transformation, set in motion by an ambitious, dynamic church leader, Jonah Sysoevich. This was a period of great upheaval in the Russian Orthodox Church, set off by the reforms of Patriarch Nikon, which alienated a large segment of the faithful—subsequently known as Old Believers. These reforms continued even after Nikon’s exile to the northern Ferapontov Monastery for challenging the authority of the Tsar Aleksei Mikhailovich (see Russian Life, June/July 1998).

During this period, many prelates of the Russian church embarked on lavish building projects that would prove to be the final expression of church power before the sharp curtailing of its wealth by the state in the 18th century. The idea of a large, enclosed ensemble of churches representative of the heavenly kingdom gripped the imagination of those church hierarchs who controlled sufficient resources to implement their will.

None succeeded more visibly than Nikon’s protege, the Metropolitan Jonah of Rostov (ca. 1607-90). The son of a country priest named Sysoy, Jonah Sysoevich rose through the monastic structure in Rosto; in 1652 he was appointed by the newly elected Patriarch Nikon to the metropolitanate in Rostov. Although devoted to his mentor, Jonah was appointed caretaker of the patriarchal throne after the departure of Nikon in 1658. These divided loyalties brought Jonah the disfavor of the tsar during Nikon’s attempt to reassert his authority in the 1660s.

Nonetheless, Jonah regained the sovereign’s trust and proceeded from his position in Rostov to marshal resources for the building of an ideal city. Jonah had at his command 16,000 serfs as well as the best craftsmen of his large and prosperous eparchy. In a span of 20 years—between 1670 and 1690—Jonah’s builders erected not only several large churches and buildings for the metropolitan’s court and residence (often referred to as the Rostov kremlin), but also magnificent citadel walls with towers and gate churches situated on the north shore of Lake Nero.

The adjacent Dormition Cathedral provided a monumental example for the metropolitan’s compound, to which it is linked visually by a great belfry, built between 1682 and 1687. It is composed of two adjoining structures, of which the taller (and later) contains the greatest of the bells—the 36-ton “Sysoy,” named after Jonah’s father. The other segment of the belfry, with three bays, contains twelve bells with names such as “Swan” and “Ram.”

This belfry, one of the most renowned in Russia, fell silent during the religious persecution of the soviet period. After the revolution, the ringing of church bells was halted whenever possible. With the beginning of the industrialization campaign in the late 1920s, bells were confiscated for their metal—and as a part of the campaign against religion. Rostov district churches were particularly rich in bells (over 1,200, according to historian A. E. Videneyeva), and hundreds were hauled away.

Most of the bells in the Rostov kremlin belfry survived. But, in January 1930, the city soviet requested that all churches refrain from bell ringing on the 6th and 7th (Orthodox Christmas). Having seen the “success” of this temporary measure, with its implied threat of punishment, two months later local authorities issued a permanent ban based on a spurious “popular” petition. As now “useless” objects, the bells of Rostov district could readily be confiscated and melted down. Only a few were saved by museums, including the kremlin bells. This sad process was repeated throughout Russia. Only during perestroika were the bells again rung on a frequent basis, for cultural reasons and recordings. Now the bells are once again rung for religious purposes.

From the great belfry, the northern entrance to the citadel that Jonah built is flanked by two towers with bulbous domes, between which is the north facade of the gate Church of the Resurrection (1670). Its pointed gables beneath onion domes remind of wooden churches, as does the elevated gallery along the south and west facades of the church. The facades are divided into three bays, with arched forms for portals on the ground floor and in the gallery arcade above. The interior is without piers, and is entirely covered in frescoes whose color and composition match the best work in Yaroslavl of that period.

Within the walls, the kremlin is occupied by buildings associated with the metropolitanate, including the Red Chambers, used as the metropolitan’s residence. Built in the southwest corner of the walls in 1672-80, the chambers form an L-shaped, 2-storied structure with a sloped roof. The main level is reached by a covered porch and steps, with tent towers over the stair landings. The interior contains a large hall supported by a central pillar, a design introduced in Novgorod in the 15th century. It is now used to arrange banquet meals for groups of tourists and local meetings.

Near the palace is the Church of the Savior on the Stores, built in 1675 above a provisions cellar. It served as the metropolitan’s chapel for devotional purposes and for the performance of sacred music. The interior of the church was decorated with the richest of wall paintings in the entire kremlin. Beyond the palace on the west wall is the citadel’s second major gate church, dedicated to St. John the Divine and flanked by large towers (1683). It is elaborately decorated, with a frieze of pointed arches in imitation of the adjacent Dormition Cathedral.

After the death of Jonah in 1690, his work was continued by the Metropolitan Josephat, who over the next decade commissioned a number of service buildings, as well as the colorful Church of the Icon of the Mother of God Hodegetria, covered on the exterior with the trompe l’oeil diamond rustication imported to Muscovy by the Italians in the early 16th century. With the death of Josephat in 1701, little else was built in the Rostov kremlin and nothing of architectural distinction. Skilled masons throughout Russia were being dragooned into the construction of St. Petersburg, founded in 1703. Indeed, the Rostov ensemble had been conceived as a complete architectural environment, and further development would most likely have damaged the original vision.

Although the archbishop’s kremlin is the most impressive ensemble in Rostov, even today there are remnants of the other churches and monasteries that once gave Rostov its imposing silhouette. Near the kremlin is the Nativity Monastery. About a kilometer to the east is the Monastery of St. Avramy, one of the oldest monasteries in Russia. According to legend, it was founded in the late 11th century by Avramy, a fierce opponent of paganism. In 1552, Ivan the Terrible took St. Avramy’s staff with him in the victorious campaign against Kazan. After the fall of Kazan, this monastery benefited from lavish gifts. In the 17th century, Jonah began his rise to power as abbot of this monastery.

To the west is the Savior St. James (Yakovlev) Monastery, founded in the 14th century and enlarged by Jonah. In 1709, the famous Bishop Dmitry of Rostov, a strong supporter of Peter the Great, was buried here; the monastery became a pilgrimage site patronized by prominent families such as the Sheremetevs, and by Emperor Alexander I. Most of its large churches were rebuilt in the early 19th century. Nearby is the beautiful Church of the Savior on the Sands, now being restored. It is the one remnant of the monastery of that name founded in the 13th century by Princess Maria and merged with the St. James Monastery in 1764.

During the late 18th century, Rostov’s status diminished. It was formally deprived of the title “the Great,” and in 1788 the metropolitanate in Rostov was eliminated. Rostov became an administrative appendage of Yaroslavl. During the reign of Catherine the Great, Rostov, like most other provincial towns, received a new, geometric city plan (1779). But Rostov’s decline became so severe that the church considered razing many buildings in Jonah’s Kremlin and turning the rest into warehouses for the adjacent trading rows.

Fortunately, during the 19th century, one of the earliest preservation groups active in Russia rallied to save the great works of art and architecture; Rostov became a symbol of the conservation of Russia’s medieval culture. Rostov also became famous for its delicate craftsmanship in the production of painted enamel icons and portraits (finift), a tradition begun in the 18th century and maintained to this day.

Rostov has continued to have its travails. In 1953 a monster storm caused tremendous damage to the city, and destroyed most of the church cupolas. But once again, restoration experts rallied and the kremlin was repaired under the supervision of Vladimir Banige, one of the leading specialists in the history of Rostov.

In 1970 Rostov was designated as a historical preserve, with the idea of turning it into another Suzdal. Those dreams, although not fully realized, are still evident in the minds of contemporary planners. The city does indeed have the potential to become a cultural mecca within the Golden Ring, if the current economic difficulties are overcome and much-needed improvements to the infrastructure (hotels and roads) are implemented. But the most important task is the preservation of the city’s unique monuments of art and architecture. With this priceless resource, Rostov will once again become “the Great.”