Tobolsk
Once Siberia’s capital, fabulous Tobolsk is one of the region’s most historic cities, sporting a magnificent kremlin and a charmingly decrepit old town. It is the only town in Siberia and one of the few in Russia which has a standing stone "kremlin", or elaborate city-fortress, from the turn of the 17th and 18th centuries. Its white walls and towers with an ensemble of churches and palatial buildings spectacularly sited on a high river bank were proclaimed a national historical and architectural treasure. The centre of the Russian colonisation of Siberia, Tobolsk was founded in 1587. Until the early 20th century it remained significant as a centre for both learning and exile. Involuntary guests included Fyodor Dostoevsky en route to exile in Omsk, and deposed Tsar Nicholas II and his family, who spent several months here in 1917 before being taken to Yekaterinburg and executed. Tobolsk was one of the largest cities of Russian Empire in 17-18th centuries. The stone-building in Tobolsk was the first in Siberia. It has been the cultural centre of Siberia for a long time. The first monastery of Siberia was built in Tobolsk. Here for the first time in Siberia schools have been open, printery, theatre, was born and the first cartographer and the historian of Siberia S.U.Remezov worked. According to legend, Tobolsk was founded in the summer of 1587 near the site where the soldiers of Ermak landed during the Battle of Chuvash Cape after which the Siberian Khanate was joined to Russia. The city’s first building was the Trinity Church, and the cape was named Trinity Cape. Until the 18th century, on maps, Tobolsk was sometimes referred to as “Siberia.” Since 1590, Tobolsk became the center of the Russian colonization of Siberia - the so-called “capital of Siberia”, which was formalized in the reforms of Peter the Great in 1708, when Tobolsk became the administrative center of the Siberian province, the largest province in Russia. It included the territory from Vyatka to the Russian America. Tobolsk was the starting point of the “Siberian exile.” The first exile was the Uglich Bell, used to raise the people to revolt after the mysterious death of Prince Dmitry, the youngest son of Ivan the Terrible. The bell was returned from Tobolsk only in the 19th century. From the second decade of the 18th century, Tobolsk became the seat of the Swedish army prisoners of war. The Swedes took an active part in the construction of the town, made a significant contribution to its cultural life. In honor of the Swedes, one of the buildings of the Tobolsk Kremlin (Rentereya) has a second name - the “Swedish House.” For the next generations of exiles, Tobolsk was a transit point to other places of exile in Siberia. Among these exiles were Fyodor Dostoevsky, Vladimir Korolenko, Alexander Solzhenitsyn and other famous people. The gradual decline of Tobolsk was associated with a range of factors. The most significant one was the relocation of the Siberian tract done to change the way of the development of Siberia, the shift of population and economic life in the south, in the forest-steppe. In the 20th century, the city became known as the administrative center of the native province of Grigory Rasputin, the place of exile of the last Russian Tsar Nicholas II and his family, as well as one of the centers of the large uprising against the Bolsheviks - the peasant uprising of 1921-1922 in Siberia. Today, the prospects of the city are associated with the Tobolsk petrochemical plant, which was once thought to be the largest such facility in the Soviet Union and even in Asia, but it still didn’t reach its full capacity. Tobolsk is one of the most beautiful cities in Siberia and Russia. Every stone breathes history here. In addition to more than 200 unique architectural monuments, Tobolsk has a rich archaeological heritage. Because of the peculiar topography, Tobolsk is divided into two parts - upper and lower. The role of tourism in Tobolsk city life is continuously increasing. Each year, it is visited by many tourists from Russia and abroad. The festival of historical reconstruction “Abalaksky field” is becoming more and more popular. Currently, there are more than 200 monuments of history and culture in Tobolsk, 35 of them are objects of cultural heritage of federal importance. Tobolsk is known as the third most important spiritual center of Russia, after Moscow and Saint Petersburg. Standing at the crossroads of trade routes, Tobolsk, for centuries, developed as a center for traditional crafts - carved bone and wood, jewelry. Tobolsk managed to keep production levels of carving craft - one of the most sought gift items for almost all tourists. The city has the only in Russia factory producing bone carving products, a tour on which is unforgettable for tourists. |
