Estates, monasteries, art, military, historical
and literary museums, small towns with long history, a lot of health centers
and holiday homes - all these attract a lot of tourists and holiday-makers to
the
The territory of the
Products of Moscow region craftsmen are famous
the world over. Many travelers wish to buy the Gzhel white-blue ceramics, the
Sergiev-Posad matryoshka, a tray of Zhostovo, a shawl of Pavlovo-Posad or a
Fedoskino lacquered box.
A Moscow nobleman's estate of the XVIII-XIX
centuries is not just a private residence surrounded by a picturesque park.
Most estates were centers of cultural life. Famous artists, writers, musicians
and actors lived in them or visited them. Now some of these estates are turned
into museums: Abramtsevo, Melihovo, Muranovo and certainly Yasnaya Poliana -
the place where for many years the great Leo Tolstoy worked and where he wrote
"Anna Karenina" and “War and Peace”.
Severe battles have taken place many times at
the lands of the Moscow region. The former battle sites are museums now. Such
is Kulikovo Field where Mongol and Tatar troops were defeated in 1380; Borodino
military-historic museum-reserve in memory of the hardest battle of Russian
army with Napoleon, a memorial complex and museum near passing-track Dubosekovo
- a memorial of the Moscow battle of 1941.
The spirit of changes typical of Moscow where a
grand-scale construction is on has concerned the Moscow region, too. With every
year more and more sanatoriums, tourist centers and holiday-homes meet world
standards. Business-centers, the newest methods of rejuvenation and medical
equipment, golf fields, aqua-parks - all these can be found today in the Moscow
region. Lovers of active rest can go into almost all kind of sports - beginning
from riding to hang-gliding and jumping with a parachute. Among a variety of
high mountain centers the most popular are those in the North of Moscow, in the
region of Yakhroma - sport park «Volen», sport complexes «Stepanovo»,
«Sorochany», in the village of Shukolovo. President of Russia Vladimir Putin, a
passionate lover of mountain skiing, often visits the last one.
To understand Russia, to feel the beauty of its
soft nature, to come to know its history and culture, one must visit the Moscow
region - this ancient land keeping the memory of great events and great people.
Archangelskoe estate is by right compared to
Versailles. In the early XIX century its owner prince Nickolay Yusupov placed
here his collections of fine arts of which a lot has survived in the Grand
palace. The pride of Archangelskoe is a regular park with memorial columns, one
hundred year old lime-trees, pavilions, the church of Archangel Mikhail,
colonnade and the Gonzago theatre with unique ancient decorations. Russian
monarchs used to visit the estate, so did the great poet Alexander Pushkin.
In the XVII century Russian Patriarch Nikon
decided to recreate the Holy Land with an exact copy of the Holy Sepulcher and
Gethsemane garden in the suburbs of Moscow. The grand New Jerusalem Monastery
similar to the ancient Jerusalem temple, a park with springs and ponds and a
cell of patriarchy Nikon were built. Now there is a museum of wooden
architecture in the park; a wooden church, a peasants' estate, a chapel and a
mill were brought here from various places of Moscow region.
One of the centers of Russian spiritual life,
Uspensky Joseph Volokolamsk (Volotsky) monastery was founded in XV century and
later it was rebuilt. Since XVII century the Saint gate with a small church
above it has survived. In the monastery there is a rich library numbering over
a thousand manuscripts, a collection of church plate, editions of the Bible,
ancient Russian needlework.
Abramtsevo is an estate not far from Sergiev
Posad of the Moscow region. Since 1870 it belonged to the famous patron of arts
and manufacturer Savva Mamontov who used to be visited by many Russian artists.
Under their projects an attic, a church and a "peasant's house on hen's
legs" (in Russian folk tales - a home of the horrible old Baba Yaga) were
built in Russian national style. Masterpiece fretworks and majolica have been
created there, too. Pictures known by any Russian, such as «A Girl with
Peaches» (Mamontov's daughter) by Valentine Serov and «Alionushka» - a
barefooted peasant girl grieving at the bank of a pond (a heroine of many
Russian tales) by Victor Vasnetsov were created in Abramtsevo. Since 1918 there
has been a museum in the estate.
This famous village is located in
In
Zvenigorod is a typical Russian provincial town.
Loghouses with carved platbands are surrounded with gardens and vegetable
gardens; there are several old stone buildings, churches, museums and a
monastery in the suburbs. Anton Chekhov used to work in the hospital of
Zvenigorod. But there is a legend, which attracts foreigners and especially
Frenchmen there. During the war of 1812 prince Eugene Bogarnet, Napoleon's
stepson, stopped to spend a night in Sawino-Storozhevsky monastery in
Zvenigorod. In his dream an old monk appeared before him and told him not to
profane Russian sanctuaries, then he would return home safe and his descendants
would live in Russia. Everything happened just this way: Bogarnet's son married
a Russian tsar's daughter and settled in Russia.
Over a hundred years ago the famous Russian
writer Anton Chekhov lived in this estate. There his play «Sea gull» was
written. The interior of the main house with a porch in form of a fairy-tale
castle remains the same as in the writer's lifetime. It seems that the
inhabitants of the house have left for a while and will be back just in a
minute. In the estate garden there is a bell, which used to call the household
to the table, a pond and the Alley of love where an old elm still grows.
Flowers are grown in beautiful flower gardens just the way the writer used to
do it himself. Nowadays Melikhovo keeps the spirit of Chekhov's epoch.
In
The tall Zachatievsky monastery and Vladichny
Vvedensky convent - the oldest in the Moscow region - beautify a small nice
provincial town of Serpukhov in the Moscow region. This town is rich in
memorials of Russian history and culture. Fragments of a white stone Kremlin
and churches are expressive. Serpukhov is also famous for its production of
jacquard blankets.
The Museum-estate of the great Russian writer
Lev Tolstoy is situated in Tula region, to the South of Moscow. In Yasnaya
Polyana the writer was born, lived about 60 years and is buried. The novels
«War and Peace » and «Anna Karenina» were written in Yasnaya Polyana. Tolstoy
used to teach peasants' children in the school built by him, edit a teacher's
journal, work in the field. Famous artists, writers, composers and followers of
Tolstoy's philosophic theory used to come here to meet the «Great Old Man».
From old times this town, in
Kulikovo Field is a military and historical
reserve in Tula district, in
In a town of Sergiev Posad (in
In this small village of the Moscow region
Sergius of Radonezh, the most respected Russian saint, spent his childhood. One
can see the landscape of this place in the picture "Vision of Adolescent
Bartholomew" by Mikhail Nesterov depicting a little herdsman, the future
founder of the Troitse-Sergieva lavra. Radonezh has once been the capital of
local princedom. In the wooden fortress in 1446 grand prince Vasily II was
captured by his cousin Dmitry Shemyaka and blinded.
Kolomna is a coeval of Moscow, a reserve of
ancient architecture, religious memorials, remainders of Kremlin towers and
walls, which survived in their original form. A walk along the ancient streets
and suburbs of this small cosy town brings us now into the romantic realm of
old Russia and then into the XIX century.
The
Russian city of Ryazan' situated to the South of Moscow dates back to the XIV
century, though there was once an older town of the same name burnt down by
Mongol and Tatars. One of its memorials is the Archangelsky cathedral famous
for its architecture. Not far from the city there is an underground monastery
in a rock. Riazan' land is closely connected with the name of Russian
remarkable poet Sergey Yesenin.