Additional Information on Suzdal

Suzdal (Суздаль) is one of the oldest towns in Russia, dating from at least the 11th century.

The origins of the town’s name, according to Adrian Room, author of Placenames of Russia and the Former Soviet Union, is unclear. The first recorded reference to the town is as Suzhdal’. The name, Room writes, “is almost certainly Slavic, and may be related to modern Russian sozdat, ‘to create,’ which originally had the specific sense of ‘to make out of clay” (from the Old Russian z’d’’, ‘clay’). If so, the meaning could be ‘(place) made out of clay,’ otherwise ‘brick-built (place).’ But the actual origin may be a personal name translating something like ‘Potter.’ The place would thus have been named for a person so called.”

The main historic sites of Suzdal are the churches and buildings of the Convent of the Intercession and Savior-Evfimy Monastery (below), which straddle the Kamenka river. Both were created as places for monastic seclusion and education, and both have served, at times, as places of exile.