The Uglich Kremlin

The Uglich Kremlin is located in the interfluve – as befits an ancient fortress: between the wide Volga and the Stone Stream. Once the city was protected by another river – Shelovka, but now it flows underground. Already in the middle of the X century, the first fortifications began to appear on this territory, surrounded by water from all sides, and over time a whole ensemble of Kremlin buildings was formed, some of which have survived to this day. First of all, you need to see the Transfiguration Cathedral, which has survived a lot in its time, with a bell tower and the church of Dimitri-on-the-blood, built on the site of the death of Tsarevich Dmitry, the youngest son of Ivan the Terrible.

The stone Transfiguration Cathedral was built here in the XV century under Prince Andrei the Great of Uglich. A century later, the deceased Dmitry was buried in it, but in 1606 the remains of the tsarevich were moved to Moscow.

During the capture of the city by the Poles in the Time of Troubles, peaceful citizens tried to hide in the cathedral, but the enemies set fire to the temple and did not spare the people. The stone cathedral that we see today is a building of Peter the Great's time. Its interior murals are the works of serf painters, copied from the images of Italian artists. Almost all the icons filling the magnificent six-tiered iconostasis belong to the XVII-XVIII centuries.

The stone church of Demetrius-on-the-blood appeared in the Uglich Kremlin at the very end of the XIX century. Before that, at the place of the death of the prince, where, according to legend, blood came out of the ground every anniversary of this tragic event, there was a chapel, then a wooden church. Among the ancient paintings inside the stone temple, the most impressive is the image telling about the murder of the tsarevich: here Dmitry comes out of the palace, here he is already dead, here the townspeople are cracking down on the guilty and so on. There is also a bell that rang for the murdered tsarevich, who lost his tongue for this and was sent to Siberia at the behest of Boris Godunov. More precisely, a copy of this bell: the long-suffering Uglich "convict" melted down in Tobolsk during a fire, but in memory of him, exactly the same bell was cast, which "returned" over time to the church of Demetrius-on-blood.

The elegant princely chambers with a high front porch, erected in the XV century by Prince Andrew the Great, is one of the few surviving monuments of medieval civil architecture. The same Tsarevich Dmitry once lived here with his mother, the disgraced wife of Ivan the Terrible, Maria Naga. Now museum expositions telling about the history of Uglich are located in the halls of the princely chambers.

There are also expositions in the building of the City Duma on the territory of the Kremlin – you will not miss this grand building of the classical era. In tsarist times, the local administration met here, and now art exhibitions and concerts are taking place.