Kazan Convent. Kazan Cathedral

According to legend, the foundation of the Kazan Monastery was preceded by the appearance of the Yaroslavl Kazan Icon of the Mother of God. For getting rid of the invasion of the Poles and lifting the 24-day siege, she became revered by the inhabitants as the patroness of the city. In 1610, in memory of those events, the construction of a wooden church for the Yaroslavl Kazan Icon of the Mother of God began in the northwestern part of the Posad. At the same time, cells were built for the 72 nuns of the Rozhdestvensky Monastery, which the Poles burned down during the siege.

In 1835, the Kazan Cathedral was erected on the site of the former wooden church. It was designed by architect A. I. Melnikov, in the style of late classicism. The large massive building is crowned with five large chapters on light reels. The quadrangle is surrounded on three sides by large porticos with several columns, and colonnades are placed on all facades. These details are reminiscent of St. Isaac's Cathedral in St. Petersburg. No wonder – at one time, Melnikov's project participated in a competition for the construction of a church in St. Petersburg, but lost to the author of St. Isaac's Cathedral. The Kazan Cathedral had a tall, elegant bell tower, built in 1828, one of the tallest in Yaroslavl. By the time the monastery, widely known for its gold embroidery and icon painting school, was preparing to celebrate its 300th anniversary, there were 400 nuns in it. In July 1910, Archbishop Tikhon of Yaroslavl and Rostov, the future Patriarch, conducted the jubilee service.

After the events of the 1918 White Guard uprising, the monastery was abolished, the property was seized, and the nuns were sent to the Tolga Monastery. In 1919-1922, there was a concentration camp in the monastery. In 1928, a reinforced concrete ceiling was built at a height of nine meters in the cathedral to house the State Archive of the Yaroslavl Region. The Church of the Intercession, which stands next to it, was converted into a library in the 1930s, and in 1948 into a planetarium. The bell tower is destroyed. In 1998, the monastery was reopened. He was given a list of the Yaroslavl Kazan Icon of the Mother of God, which was completed by the nuns of the monastery even before its abolition and closure. In 2001, divine services began in the Kazan Cathedral. Since 2000, the monastery has housed the relics of St. Agafangel (Transfiguration), Metropolitan of Yaroslavl and Rostov, canonized as the Holy New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia.