Ipatievskaya Sloboda, aka Kostroma, is a landscape and architectural and ethnographic open-air museum-reserve. It is located near the Holy Trinity Ipatiev Monastery in the suburbs of Kostroma. It is one of the main attractions of the city.
Description
Ipatievskaya Sloboda is located on the right bank of the Kostroma River in the historical urban area known as Zakostromka. It is located on the lands around the famous Ipatiev Monastery.
The ethnomuseum contains samples of wooden architecture typical for this region. Several sites housed a church, streets with old houses, mills, outbuildings.
Exposition base
May 3, 1960, it was decided to establish a museum of folk wooden architecture of the Kostroma region. The official document became the starting point for the existence of a new open-air ethnomuseum, known today as the Kostroma (Ipatievskaya) Sloboda near the Kostroma River.
The story of himformation began long before that - with the transfer of the first monuments of folk architecture to the New Court of the Ipatiev Monastery, on the territory and in the buildings of which the historical and architectural museum-reserve was then located.
Resettlement of monuments of wooden architecture was planned in the residential area of the Bogoslovskaya Sloboda near the Ipatiev Monastery. So, on the banks of the Kostroma River, among the suburban buildings, three remarkable works of folk architecture appeared: the Church of the Cathedral of the Most Holy Theotokos from the village of Kholm, Galichsky District, the house of A. E. Architectural and Ethnographic Museum.
Further development
In 1968, the organization was given a piece of land, outside the Ipatiev Monastery, on the Strelka - at the confluence of the Kostroma River into the Volga. Now this is the main exposition complex of the architectural and ethnographic museum, where monuments of wooden architecture of various types are collected:
- temple buildings (two churches and three chapels);
- residential buildings (eight huts);
- farm buildings (windmills, bathhouses, barns, barns, forge).
The buildings were transported to the Ipatievskaya Sloboda and placed on the banks of the small river Igumenka, which flows into the Kostroma River, into the system of a recreated village street, as a series of separate architectural monuments, each of which impresses with its expressiveness and original unique character.
Ipatiev Monastery
The Holy Trinity Ipatiev Monastery in Kostroma, on the basis of which the museum-reserve operates, is an outstanding example of Russian national architecture. The date of foundation of the monastery is unknown, and the first written records date back to 1432.
It consists of two "towns": Old and New. The complex is well protected by a high wall, on the sides of which there are towers with loopholes. The central place is occupied by the Trinity Cathedral with gilded domes. There is a belfry nearby. The monastery played an important unifying role during the Time of Troubles.
Temple of the Cathedral of the Holy Mother of God
Ipatievskaya Sloboda and the monastery sheltered many wonderful old buildings. One of them is a unique historical monument, the oldest in the Kostroma region, the Church of the Cathedral of Pr. Virgin built in 1552.
It represents the original features of the regional architectural tradition. Its oldest part is the octagonal foot, cut down in the 16th century and crowned already in the 18th century with an elegant five-domed on a groin barrel. Tradition dates the construction of the temple to the reign of Ivan the Terrible.
Ershov House
The first residential building of the Ipatievskaya Sloboda in Kostroma was the house of A. E. Ershov from the village of Portyug, which is part of a large estate. The museum-reserve presents a complex of a summer hut, a room and a villager, united by a wide corridor-bridge. The buildings are dated1860. In architectural terms, it is a traditional housing typical of the northern regions.
The house stands on a high basement, equipped with small windows and shutters. In the hut are:
- wide half;
- high golbets;
- Russian oven;
- shops along the walls.
The living quarters are large enough to accommodate up to 15 family members.
Church of the Transfiguration of the Savior
In the 1950s, four baths on stilts and a remarkable example of temple architecture, the Church of the Transfiguration of the Savior from the village of Spas-Vezhi, Kostroma District, were transported to Ipatievskaya Sloboda. Unfortunately, the fire of 2002 badly damaged this unique monument, but the hope for its restoration has not faded away.
The pearl of architecture, being the only temple building on piles that has survived to our time, was an outstanding landmark of the entire Kostroma Territory. It is known that the church was cut down by the Yaroslavl carpenters brothers Muliev in 1713. The temple of the Klet type with a five-sided altar and a gallery covering the refectory and the central square is set on 24 oak piles.
Chapygina's House
What else to see in Kostroma? Not far from Kostroma is the ancient city of Nerekhta. The house of E. P. Chapygina of the beginning of the 20th century was transported from the Nerekhtsky district from the village of Bolshoye Andreikovo. A small hut built of thin logs is covered with a plank roof instead of the original thatched one. Animal farm with an elongated roof slope, attached to its sidewall, could accommodate several goats or sheep. The residential part consists of a cramped hut and a tiny unheated burner or selnik. They are separated by a "bridge", from which there is a passage to the barnyard.
In a small hut, ethnographers lovingly recreate the modest life of the villagers. Today, tourists can see how the housewives stoked the stove, cooked food, cared for livestock, spun and wove linen. The owners got along bast shoes, wove baskets, were engaged in carpentry and agricultural work.
Tarasov's House
Further along the path is a large hut, placed on two feet, from the Vokhomsky district. The building consists of several rooms: a hut, a chamber, a villager, a closet, a yard, a bridge-corridor. The yard is arranged in two floors: on the first - barns for animals; the second tier (povit) is littered with hay, household utensils are also stored here. Next to the hut is a granary - a barn for storing grain. The estate is fenced with a high zaplot (fence) with massive strong gates.
The house of K. S. Tarasov from the village of Mukhino, Vokhomsky district, is a remarkable, one of a kind, monument in the Ipatievskaya Sloboda. This is a traditional northern hut with a black firebox. Often such buildings were called "black tubes". There is an adobe stove in the hut, above it there is a hole, which is covered with a wooden valve. Part of the smoke came out into this hole, partly spread along the hut. Soot and soot settled on the ceiling and walls. The low lintels of the doorway and the high thresholds kept the heat well. To keep clean, every Saturdayceilings were swept, and walls and floors were scraped and washed.
Owin
Now you don't see such a usual building in the past for a village, where sheaves of grain crops were dried. A barn from the village of Pustyn, Sharya district, a unique monument of rural life, found its place in Ipatievskaya Sloboda.
These buildings are fire hazardous, so they were placed at a distance from the houses. They were drowned in late autumn, kindled a fire in a pit under the hut, nailed to its wall. The owners made sure that the fire burned strongly, evenly, giving heat to the upper part of the barn, where sheaves of grain were laid on grate poles to dry. In the morning they were threshed. The released grain was winnowed and poured into the bins of barns. As needed, they were taken to the mill to be ground into flour or cereals.
Mills
Wooden windmills are wonderful buildings that were an indispensable element of the Russian rural landscape. Today, beautiful, light, slender structures have completely disappeared from modern rural life and are now preserved only in open-air museums as worthy monuments of folk craftsmanship. Pillar windmills were transported to the Kostroma (Ipatievskaya) Sloboda Museum from the villages of Razlivnoye and Germanov Pochinok, Soligalichsky District.
In the center of the structure there is a fixed pillar, deeply dug into the ground, around which a small barn (cage) with mill equipment rotates with its wings towards the wind on special supports inclined towards the center. Inserted into the front wall of the barna horizontal shaft on which wings are mounted, setting in motion the millstones and pestles of the mill setting.
Another type of windmills are the so-called tent mills. They are characterized by the inclination of the walls towards the upper part of the main volume. In the "shatrovka" only the upper part of the mill structure rotates. A tent-type mill was transported to Kostroma from the village of Spas, Nerekhtsky District.
Reviews
Ipatievskaya Sloboda is a significant landmark not only of Kostroma, but of the entire Upper Volga region. Tourists highly appreciate both the organizational activities of the museum and the exposition presented, calling it one of the best in the country. Often the complex is visited as part of group tours, but the allocated time is not always enough. It is much more interesting to devote a day to studying the museum-reserve. During this time, you can slowly walk around the exhibits, have a bite to eat and relax under the canopy of trees.
What to see in Kostroma, in addition to the settlement:
- Nearby Ipatiev Monastery.
- VRK "Terem Snow Maiden".
- Promenade.
- Fire tower.
- Trading stalls of the 18th-19th centuries.
- Epiphany Anastasin Monastery.
- Museum of flax and birch bark.
- The Kostroma State Art and Historical and Architectural Museum.
Of course, this is only a small part of what the beautiful old city on the Volga has to offer.
