Tikhvin

Tikhvin
is a region centre in the Leningrad area, located in 200 km to the east from St.-Petersburg. The town is located within the limits of Volkhov lowland, on the river Tikhvinka (the pool of the Ladoga lake).

Tikhvin is the unit of the railways (to St.-Petersburg, Cherepovets and Budogosch).

The general sight of the town is the Tikhvin Uspensky monastery.

The general description

The ancient Russian town Tikhvin is located to the east from St.-Petersburg, in southern Ladoga part of Leningrad area. It is connected with St. Petersburg and the other Russian towns by railways and automobile roads.

Its interesting history reflected in survived constructions and structures, the main of which is the Uspensky monastery, being for a long time religious, administrative and cultural centre of the life of the town and the extensive adjoining territories.

Historical town centre with a lay-out of the 18th century and characteristic to the ancient Tikhvin wooden building is very interesting. The survived wooden sluices say about the water system of the 19th century, providing during many years intensive trade connections of the centre of Russia with its northern territories and foreign countries.

Perfect environmental pine woods and the picturesque coast of the river Tikhvinka quite satisfy the amateurs of a nature.

Today Tikhvin is the modern comfortable town with the advanced industry, new inhabited quarters, every possible educational, sports and cultural establishments. Let's thank modern architects and builders, which have not covered by modern 9-storeyed buildings the ancient beauty of monastery structures and wooden buildings, what gives to us a perfect opportunity to admire them today.

Pages of history

The Uspensky cathedral. The western facade. The 16-19th century.

The district, where the town is nowadays located, was populated long before its occurrence. In the vicinities of the Tikhvin the ruins of settlements of the epoch of neolith (3-2 century B. C.) were found out. In the first century A. D. there was the tribe Ves - the ancestors of present Vepsy, living up to our times in these territories.

In the 13th or 14th century on the left coast of the river Tikhvinka there was a settlement - Prechistensky Tikhvinsky Pogost. In 1383 here the wooden church of Uspenija was constructed. In 1515 under the instruction of great prince Moscow Vasilij Ivanovich here the stone Uspensky cathedral was constructed, and in the middle of the 16th century his son - the tsar Ivan Vasiljevich Grozny - visited the Tikhvin monastery. This visit strengthened the importance of Tikhvin as a cultural centre.

The monastery and the merchants grew rich.

In the beginning of Livon war (1558) Ivan Grozny decided to strengthen Tikhvin as a possible important defense point on the southeast of Ladoga, for what he ordered to increase and to enclose by powerful walls the Tikhvin Large monastery. These walls were useful in the beginning of the 17th century, in the times of the struggle with Swedish conquers.

Under the Stolbovsky agreement of 1617 the Novgorod area passed to Russia, but the Izhorskaja area remained under the Sweden authority, closing almost for hundred years "a window in Europe". Tikhvin was ruined by the war. But in the 17th century thanks to a favorable geographical position along the trade ways and the development of the handicrafts in the town and in the neighboring villages Tikhvin became the important commercial and industrial centre alongside with Novgorod and Pskov. The annual Tikhvin fairs were glorified in all Russia. Tikhvin had trade connections with 45 Russian towns, especially with Novgorod, Pskov, Moscow, Yaroslavl, Kostroma, Ustjuzhna, Beloozero, Kargopol, Vologda, Ladoga, Olonets and others. On the other hand, Tikhvin merchants had the business relations with Stockholm, Vyborg, Narva, Revel, Riga and Luebeck.

The domes of the Tikhvinsky Uspensky monastery.

Many Tikhvin inhabitants became experienced sailors a long before the creation of Russian Baltic fleet by Peter I, in spite of the fact that in the north-west the Russia had not the access to the sea. Among the handicrafts? developed in the 17th century, there was the forge craft based on a local raw material - "the marsh ore", long since extracted from the bottom of the swamps in many places near Tikhvin. The prosperity of the trade and the crafts promoted the growth of the town. In Tikhvin there was the trade court, consisted of six lines: the Big line (belonged to the monastery and the merchants), Silver line, Salt, Meat, Fish and Roll line. Near it there was the custom-house.

Just in the 17th century the large works of the construction of new monastery structures and the decorating of the existing buildings were made. During this period the ensemble of the Tikhvin monastery acquired the most valuable monuments of Russian architecture and painting. In the beginning of the 18th century the well-being of Tikhvin shook because of the war with the Swedes. Though Tikhvin was not exposed to attack, but it was reduced to beggary. It provided the army with grain stocks, fodder, carts, etc. Under the Peter's I order it sent the people, stone, iron and the every possible stocks for the construction of St. Petersburg, Shlisselburg and Kronstadt.

The sluice of the Tikhvin's water system of the 19th century.

In 1764 Ekaterina II confiscated the monastery ground in state's favour and distributed it to the noblemen. In 1773 Tikhvin officially received the status of the town and its own insignia. As three years prior to that the terrible fire destroyed almost all town, under the offer of the Novgorod governor the town was constructed in this place according to the general plan.

In the beginning of the 19th century the importance of Tikhvin especially grown thanks to the beginning of a navigation on Tikhvin water system. By 1811 here 7 sluices and 65 half-sluices were constructed.

The cultural life of Tikhvin quickened.

The great Russian composer Nikolaj Andreevich Rimsky-Korsakov was born and spent a childhood in this town. In his house today there is the museum.

The house-museum of the composer Rimsky-Korsakov. Here he spent his childhood. Now here the music concerts are conducted.

In the 19th century a famous Siberian path passed through Tikhvin. In 1826 on the way to the Siberian exile the revolutionaries passed through the town and stopped at the local post station. In 1849 on this path F. M. Dostoevsky followed to the penal servitude. The house, where in the 19th century the post station was placed, was survived (the house No. 13 on the Moscow street).

>From the second half of the 19th century the business and trade glory of Tikhvin became to die away. By the construction of railway and the reconstruction of Mariinsky water system the importance of Tikhvin trade navigation reduced, then the recession of the trade and the industry happened. The life of the town quickened during the religious holidays, when pilgrims from all Russia gathered in Tikhvin.

During the Great October revolution in the Tikhvin area there were the struggle for authority, famine, difficult adjustment of new life...

Tikhvin participated in Great Patriotic War. The Tikhvin operation of 1941, prevented from the creation of the second ring of the blockade of Leningrad, entered in a military history. Now Tikhvin is the important industrial centre of Leningrad area. The largest enterprises are the Tikhvin metallurgical and machine-building manufactures of the Kirov factory. Tikhvin becomes the large town, but it never will lose the charm of its historical childhood.

Places of Interest

The belfry and the Pokrovskaja church – the constructions of the architectural complex of the former Uspensky monastery. The 17th century.

In spite of reorganizations and reconstruction within almost 500 years, the Tikhvin Uspensky cathedral kept the important role in general ensemble of the town thanks to its solemnity and monumentality. The frescos, executed inside the cathedral by the Novgorod and Tikhvin painters, were partially survived.

One of the interesting structures of the Uspensky monastery is the belfry of the 17th century with adjoined to it Trapeznaja and Pokrovskaja churches in the southwest part of the monastery court. The shape of the belfry repeats the belfry of the Sofijsky cathedral in Novgorod, however, this belfry was constructed in 1600, and further it suffered from a fire, and in the 18th century it was reconstructed. The building of the Trapeznaja church is interesting by its lay-out and the design of its main premise; its hall reminds the Granovitaja chamber of Moscow Kremlin. Unfortunately, its painting was not survived.

The state cells of the Tikhvinsky Uspensky monastery.

In the end of the 16th century in the monastery the Sacred gate with the church of Voznesenija was constructed. One of the significant constructions of the Uspensky monastery of the 17th century are the building of the state cells.

The Krestovozdvizhenskaja church constructed in the 17th century and reconstructed in the 19th century under the project of known St.-Petersburg architect N. L. Benua. Under his project the church and the chapel in the western tower of the monastery wall were constructed. These walls were erected in the end of the 18th and the beginning of the 19th century to the memory of the past military glory. Besides the perfect architectural monuments in the monasteries, in Tikhvin the fragments of the famous water system of the beginning of the 19th century are survived. Examine them. Imagine a numerous fleet of ships and boats with the various goods, skippers, boatmen, merchants, etc. The life seethed on the coast of Tikhvinka, which is quiet today. The big trade court is survived to our time. And we hope, that the people will cheerfully trade and cheerfully, clever and richly live in famous Tikhvin.