Vologda

Vologda is one of the oldest cities in Russia. Since September 23, 1937 – the administrative, cultural and scientific center of the Vologda region. The city is located on the bank of the Vologda River. The most important railway tracks intersect in Vologda (from Moscow to Arkhangelsk, Vorkuta and from Vologda to St. Petersburg). The federal highway M-8 Moscow - Arkhangelsk also passes through Vologda. The population of the city as of January 1, 2014 amounted to 316.6 thousand people. The date of foundation of the city of Vologda is considered to be 1147. This year is mentioned in the life of St. Gerasim, who, having come from Kiev, founded the Trinity Monastery on the Vologda River, which marked the beginning of a large city. The life of Gerasim, first studied in the XVIII century by researcher A. A. Zasetsky, was written in the middle of the XVII century by decree of Archbishop Markel by a certain Thomas. The first documentary evidence of Vologda, recognized by historians, is in the treaty of Novgorod with the prince, dated 1236. The second mention of the city is contained in the chronicle report that in 1246, Prince Yaroslav of Tver, together with the Tatars, attacked Vologda and had a "rich greed" from its robbery. Archaeological research has also not yet confirmed the chronicle time of the foundation of Vologda. The oldest finds on the territory of the city belong to the XIII century.

No one knows exactly where the name of the city came from, but there is an opinion that it is connected with both Finno-Ugric and Slavic origin.

Perhaps the word "Vologda" comes from the Ugro-Finnish "portage" – "big forest". Vologda in the old days was really surrounded by dense forests. Another explanation of the origin of the name is seen in the Zyryan word "volokva" – "forest river" or "clear river". In the Vepsian language, "vouged" means "white", the older forms of this word are "valgeda", "valkeda". Thus, the toponym "Vologda" can be deciphered as "a river with clear, clear water". Others tend to think that the city got its name from the Slavic word "portage", since the Novgorodians, mastering the rich eastern lands, moved their boats into the basin of the Sukhona and Northern Dvina precisely along the portages. Portage - a pass in the upper reaches of rivers of various basins, comes from the word "drag" (to drag). Ships with goods were dragged through the portages by the dry route – "dragging". This version became the most famous thanks to the book "My Wanderings" by Vladimir Gilyarovsky, who lived in Vologda in his youth. The root of the name "Vologda" may come from the name of some prince or princess who owned the city, for example, Vsevolod, Rogvolda and Rogvolgda. Vologda also has another name - Nason- a city known from folk songs and legends. It came from the names of the Holy Apostles Jason and Sosipater, on whose day, on April 28, 1565, Tsar Ivan the Terrible laid the foundation stone of the Vologda Kremlin fortress. Vologda's advantageous position at the crossroads of waterways made the city a place of internecine wars between Novgorod and Moscow in the XIII-XV centuries. Only at the end of the XIV century, Prince Vasily Dmitrievich of Moscow annexed Vologda to his possessions. Since that time, the city has become the domain of the Moscow princes. Galician Prince Dmitry Shemyaka, Grand Duke Vasily the Dark, Ivan III, Vasily III visited Vologda in different years. City fortifications and bridges, dwellings and churches, commercial and industrial premises were built from wood. The lazy playground with the Church of the Resurrection of Christ remained the center of the ancient city for almost five centuries. In 1565, Ivan the Terrible began to build a stone city on Nizhny Posad - the Vologda Kremlin with St. Sophia Cathedral. A significant period of Vologda's heyday and strengthening is associated with the reign of Ivan the Terrible. First of all, the city is becoming one of the most important transit centers in Russia's foreign trade with England, Holland and other Western countries along the White Sea Route and in trade with Siberia along the Sukhona and Vychegda. In Vologda, the sovereign's storeroom yard was built on the bank of the river. Foreigners opened their trading offices and courtyards in the city. The sales agent Gass in 1554 wrote about Vologda as a large and rich city in the center of Russia, trading with many cities. Ivan the Terrible repeatedly visited Vologda. Feeling safer in the north, he decided to create his new state residence here. There is a legend that Ivan the Terrible wanted to turn Vologda into the capital of Russia, but this was prevented by a fragment of brick that allegedly fell from the ceiling of the unfinished St. Sophia Cathedral, either on it or next to the monarch – "as a red plinth fell from the Tupovatov vault." Grand Duke Ivan IV was eager to turn Vologda into the capital of the Oprichnina. The subsequent liquidation of the oprichnina, obviously, changed Grozny's plans for Vologda. During the Time of Troubles Vologda and its surroundings were subjected to severe devastation. In 1605, the city was engulfed by a plague epidemic. In February 1609, a people's militia led by Nikita Vysheslavtsev left Vologda, which liberated the cities of Romanov and Yaroslavl from the interventionists. On September 22, 1612 Vologda was taken by Poles and Lithuanians, who destroyed almost the entire population of the city. As the Vologda Archbishop Sylvester testified, "On September 22, an hour before sunrise, the ravagers of the Orthodox faith came to Vologda as an unknown exile, took the city, flogged all sorts of people, insulted the churches of God, burned the city and the suburbs to the ground."

With the accession of the Romanov dynasty to the throne, Vologda is experiencing a new rise. By the decree of Tsar Mikhail Fedorovich, the wooden city fortress is being revived and strengthened. The city is turning into one of the main markets for trade in bread, salt, and animal products. The foreign trade of the Moscow state with Western countries goes through Vologda. The Vologda region is actively developing flax processing, leather production, wood processing, blacksmithing. From the middle of the XVI to the end of the XVIII centuries, the city was located on both banks of the Vologda River for five kilometers. It consisted of the Kremlin (fortifications were located within the modern streets of Mira, Oktyabrskaya, Leningradskaya and the banks of the Vologda River) and three townships: Upper, Lower and Zarechny. The Kremlin was the military, administrative, commercial and spiritual center of the city, the county and the greater Vologda diocese.

Under Peter I, who visited our city five times, Vologda became one of the main state military bases of the country. Military and technical equipment for fortresses and warships under construction were stored here. Ships were built in the city to deliver supplies to Arkhangelsk, ropes were made. After the foundation of St. Petersburg, the main trade links moved from the northern direction to the Baltic. For a while, any stone construction is prohibited in Vologda, since the stone is used for the construction of the new Russian capital. By the decree of Catherine II, Vologda in 1780 became the center of the Vologda viceroyalty, and then the Vologda province. Vologda was built up until the beginning of the twentieth century according to the plan of the provincial city approved in 1781. In the XIX century, Vologda formed the historical appearance that is characteristic of the city today. Stone and wooden mansions, administrative buildings built in the century before last, still adorn the city. The development of the city was facilitated by the construction of railways in the Vologda province. The question of connecting Vologda by rail with major cities of Russia came up on the agenda in the 60s of the XIX century. The work was undertaken by the "Society of the Moscow-Yaroslavl-Arkhangelsk Railway", whose main shareholder was Savva Mamontov. At first glance, the arrangement of the road "through the swamps" seemed to be the whim of a millionaire. State people on this occasion ironically said that "he intends to export cloudberries from the north," but Mamontov remained deaf to these ridicule and did his job. It took only a year to build a narrow-gauge railway from the Urochye station (Yaroslavl) to the Vologda station. Its opening took place on June 20, 1872. At 6 o'clock in the morning, the first passenger train with 112 passengers left Yaroslavl and arrived in Vologda in the evening. Among the passengers were Savva Mamontov and chief construction engineer Chizhov. In 1897, a narrow-gauge railway connected Vologda with Arkhangelsk. During the First World War, the importance of the Arkhangelsk port increased significantly, so the railway was rebuilt on a broad gauge.

The construction of the Petersburg-Vologda-Vyatka railway began in 1901. In 1906 Vologda was connected by a steel highway with St. Petersburg, and in 1907 - with Vyatka. The travel time of the passenger train to the capital was 19 hours.

At the end of the XIX–early XX centuries, a water supply system, a power plant, a telephone exchange began to work in Vologda, cinemas opened.

For a long historical period, Vologda land was a place of political exile. It is no coincidence that the Vologda province was called "sub-capital Siberia" from the second half of the XIX century. Since the XIX century, exiles, among whom were prominent politicians, writers, scientists, had a great influence on the political, social and cultural life of the entire region. According to approximate estimates, in the late XIX – early XX centuries, a total of about ten thousand people passed through Vologda exile, among them A.V. Lunacharsky, B. V. Savinkov, A. A. Bogdanov, N. A. Berdyaev, V. M. Molotov, I. V. Stalin, M. I. Ulyanova and others.