Ipatievsky Monastery - the main attraction of the Kostroma

The episode with the vocation of Mikhail Romanov in the kingdom - by and large, an accident in the history of the Ipatiev Monastery. Before it was the ancestral home of the Godunovs, with no connection with the Romanovs.

In place of the Kostroma Kremlin, the Soviet government installed the giant Lenin, however, the monument did not become a new center of the city. This role somehow passed by itself to a white-stone monastery that stands on a cape at the confluence of the Kostroma river into the Volga.

The geographical location of the Ipatiev Monastery in this case does not matter - on the contrary, remoteness from the city center only emphasizes the beauty and significance of the monastery: around - river, village houses of the Ipatiev Sloboda and Zavolzhsky hills with absolutely Kustodiev churches. The center with the square “frying pan” and Shopping Rows is responsible in Kostroma for the provincial classicism, the Ipatiev Monastery for gray-haired antiquity.

During the Soviets, the connection between the monastery and the Romanov dynasty became a burdensome factor, Ipatievsky almost shared the fate of the Kostroma Kremlin - but “got off” with the destruction of only one church, the Nativity of the Most Holy Mother of God, which had no great historical value. The museum-reserve, established here in 1958, saved the main ensemble of the monastery. But as soon as the Soviet authorities gave up the slack, back in 1989, the services in the monastery resumed, and in 2004 the museum was evicted with scandal. Its best exhibits, one of those that had not been brought to Moscow by that time, went to the monastery. Also in 2004, the Church Historical and Archaeological Museum of the Kostroma Diocese (CIAM) began its work in the Ipatiev Monastery.

Now, the high status of the Ipatiev Monastery, the official “cradle of the Romanov dynasty,” literally underlines everything: churches restored to the state of the remake, neat paving of paths, lush flowers and evenly trimmed grass on lawns ... The tones, on reflection, turned out to be extremely tenacious).

However, all this is quite in the traditions of Ipatievsky: a close connection with the ruling dynasty inevitably led to large-scale construction and decoration of the monastery. The green tower of the New City, with its marquee, appeared under Mikhail Fedorovich, denoting the place to which the monastic procession conducted the first Romanov on the way to reign. Front Catherine Gates with triumphal arches emerged for the arrival, as you might guess, Catherine II. In the 19th century, court architects Konstantin Ton (author of the Grand Kremlin Palace and the Cathedral of Christ the Savior) and Fyodor Richter, the builder of the “ancient” Romanov chambers at Varvarka in Moscow, left their mark in the monastery.

All the more surprising that Ipatievsky, despite all the “upgrades”, has retained the spirit of genuine antiquity, the charm of the end of the XVI century and the era of the early Romanovs.

The first Romanov was the most famous figure in the history of the ancient monastery, obscuring the fact that Ipatievsky is primarily the ancestral home of the Godunovs and a number of Kostroma boyar families close to them. The most valuable in the monastic church-archaeological museum are the numerous contributions of Tsar Boris and his kindred: luxurious embroidery, icons and applied art from the end of the 16th century.

Romanovsky episode - by and large, an accident in the history of the monastery, the monastery itself was in no way connected with the Romanovs. But the fact remains: it was in this stone monastery fortress that Mikhail Romanov, together with his mother, nun Marfa, was hiding from the troubles of the Time of Troubles. It was here, in Ipatievsky, that the delegation of the Zemsky Sobor arrived to call the young Mikhail Fedorovich to reign. On March 14, 1613, the Moscow embassy begged Mikhail to accept the royal crown, although the mother of the future tsar resisted in every way - and the time is terrible, and her son is still young, and even Father Patriarch Filaret cannot bless his son properly, for he is in Polish captivity near Smolensk. And Mikhail Fedorovich even crying.

Soon the Trinity Cathedral, where Michael made the fateful decision, was destroyed in such a strange way that it is difficult not to consider it a bad omen. In 1649, the cathedral collapsed from the explosion of a “potion”, that is, a stock of gunpowder stored in its basement in case of war. Only the cathedral gates of the Godunov times, slightly crushed by the explosion, survived. Now these gates, completely covered with interesting images in the technique of gold, are stored in the monastery museum.

But the new Trinity Cathedral, built on an old basis in all the glory of the Moscow pattern, has retained a magnificent painting made by the famous Gury Nikitin. The colors and lines of the frescoes on the walls of the tall, light church give out the work of the great master - this was one of the last major works by Nikitin, completed in 1685 To the left of the iconostasis, there is a record below that lists the authors who worked on the wall painting, “the isographists of the city of Kostroma,” and Nikitin was named first. In addition, the cathedral is a beautiful iconostasis - volumetric grape branches in the technique of Flemish carving, covered with thin sheets of gold leaf, made by carvers from the posad Bolshie Soli, located between Kostroma and Yaroslavl.

The chambers of the boyars of the Romanovs, supposedly "the very ones" where Mikhail and his mother lived in the winter of 1612–1613, are in fact typical “Tsar's palaces of the XVII century,” as they were seen from the middle of the XIX century to architects Ton and Richter. This "remake" of the nineteenth century grew up above the lower floor of the time of Godunov. It is this reconstruction of an imaginary past that, oddly enough, represents the main interest of the Romanov chambers - it is in harmony with their current strange coloring with a bright geometric pattern. In addition, there is now a very interesting exposition in the Chambers, in which many interesting contributions from the first Romanovs made to the monastery are presented.

IMPORTANT
The Ipatiev Monastery is a male, acting, at the entrance strictly guarded ensures that the incoming were dressed appropriately: closed clothes are recommended, and headscarves or hats are also recommended for women.

Entry into the territory and the Trinity Cathedral is free. A fee is charged for visiting the expositions of the church's historical and archeological museum. Photographing paid. In the Trinity Cathedral to photograph is prohibited.

LOCAL FEATURES
The refectory in the monastery does not work, but there is a cafe "Ipatiev Sloboda" on the shore opposite the fair with flax and antique samovars.

Near the entrance to the monastery is equipped with a spacious parking lot.

Buildings on the territory of the Ipatiev Monastery:
- Trinity cathedral church (1650–1652)- Belfry (1603–1605)
- The Bishops' Corps (18th century) with the Holy Gates and the Gate Church of the Great Martyrs Chrysanthus and Daria (mid-19th century)
- Chambers of the Romanov boyars (XVI century, reconstruction of the middle of the XIX century). The exposition "Ipatiev Monastery - the cradle of the House of Romanov"
- Localist Corps (XVI century, reconstruction of the middle of the XIX century)
- Fraternal Corps (XVIII century)
- Cells above the cellars (XVI – XVIII centuries)
- Refectory Corps (XVI – XVII centuries)
- Candle body (XIX century). Here are the expositions “Contributions of the boyar and royal family of the Godunovs to the Ipatiev Monastery”, “Church antiquities of the Kostroma land. Treasures of Russian applied art XVII - XIX centuries "," Old Russian icon XV-XX centuries"
- Walls and towers of the Old City (XVI – XVII centuries)
- Walls and towers of the New City (XVII century)

Behind the southern wall of the Ipatiev Monastery, on the Spit at the confluence of Kostroma into the Volga, there is an architectural-ethnographic and landscape museum-reserve “Kostromskaya Sloboda”, better known under the generalized name of the Museum of Wooden Architecture.

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