"The Silver Ring of the Vorotynsky Land" — an armchair tour of the cultural heritage sites of the Vorotynsky District.
Text by the tour guide
The territory of the Vorotynsky District holds about 80 monuments of historical heritage and nature monuments under state protection. Their rank differs: some monuments are under district-level protection (all of them located within Vorotynets and Vasilsursk), some are protected at the regional level (mostly churches), and some are of federal significance.
You could not see all the monuments in a single day, even by car, since they are scattered across Kamenka, Shokino, Vasilsursk, and Nadezhdino. And the Vorotynsky District is divided into three parts by the rivers Volga and The Sura River.
The first stop of the tour is Vasilsursk. Historians assert that the name Vasilsursk is tied to the period of the Moscow state's struggle with the Kazan Khanate. In 1523 the Grand Prince of Moscow Vasily III Ivanovich ordered a fortress to be founded at the mouth of the Sura River, "so that the Kazan people would no longer dare to march on Rus."
Today Vasilsursk is a remarkable, truly resort-like corner of the Vorotynsky District. It is no accident that Levitan and Polenov, Shishkin and Gorky all stayed here, regularly resting and working here at the end of the 19th century.
On the very bank of the Volga beneath Vasilskaya Hill, in the Khmelevskaya settlement, stands the oldest church on Vorotynsky land — the Kazan Church (1708). It has a graceful cupola silhouette above the squat cube of the church topped by a tall bell tower. Small windows fitted with grilles, wide patterned cornices, elegant brick window surrounds, and receding door portals. All of this is executed in the traditions of late-17th-century architecture and attests to the high skill of the builders of this structure, with its interesting composition and forms. The iron crosses on the cupolas are exceptionally beautiful — remarkable works by local blacksmiths.
Unfortunately the wall paintings have not survived. Restoration work has recently been carried out on the interior, the roof was replaced, and the foundation was reinforced. Yet from the outside it is visible that cracks have spread across the walls. This is a consequence of the Raising the Water Level in the Cheboksary Hydroelectric Power Plant Reservoir.
The three-tiered, square-plan bell tower, done in the forms of classicism, was added in 1872. It has Doric pilasters and arched openings in two ringing tiers.
The church is carefully preserved by the people of Vasilsursk, and to this day gives us the joy of communing with the beauty of the Volga expanses, filled with the calm and wisdom of the Russian land.
Visitors to the district note in the people of Vorotynets such traits of character as unhurriedness and composure, hospitality and warmth. They inherited these from their ancestors — Vorotynsky, Bykovsky, Semyansky, Fokinsky, and Belavsky peasants, craftsmen, traders, fishermen, and hunters.
Take a close look at the Merchant Houses of Vorotynets. Sturdy, solid, on massive stone semi-basements, so that high groundwater would harm neither the building nor the estate. And those who had their own business, like the Vorotynets merchants Yalovitsyn, Ryabov, Simonov, Afanasyev, Efimov, and others, built such mansions and manors that they still serve people well to this day. In Vorotynets, in their spacious rooms with high windows and ceilings, they have housed a library, the editorial office of the "Vorotynets Newspaper," a children's creativity center, the district consumer cooperative office, the district military commissariat, and the district internal affairs department.
Ulitsa Svobody begins with the mansion of Ryabov, the district's chief grain merchant. Enormous on the outside, thanks to the carved brick window surrounds with kokoshnik ornaments, it looks like an elegant casket. And in its rooms, cool even in thirty-degree heat, one breathes easily and freely. To this day it has a beautifully thought-out supply ventilation system that provides constant circulation of fresh air. The ceiling height on the second floor is more than three meters, so that even a whisper carries through it as a cheerful echo.
The village of Semyany takes pride in the Michael-Archangel church, consecrated in 1912. Its builder was the priest Ioann Flerov, now glorified among the holy martyrs. Nearby a holy spring flows, dedicated to the holy healers Cosmas and Damian.
Pokrov-Maydan (Pokrovsky Maydan) and Bykovka are the ancestral seat of the famous Demidov family. In Pokrov-Maidan, next to the former estate, in what was once a well-tended park and is now overgrown, stands a church built in the 19th century.
Today Bykovka is a small village, but it holds several monuments at once: two churches — the Nativity church (1830) and the Znamenskaya church (1829), a 19th-century church fence with gates, a retaining wall (1884), two 19th-century estate houses, and an old estate park (early 19th century).
The Nativity Church was built in the classicist style and is a stone structure with a dome on a large drum, a single-apse altar, a refectory, and a tiered bell tower over the west entrance. The central volume is adorned on the north and south by porticoes with paired Doric pilasters and broken triangular pediments. The slender volume of the bell tower, shaped as a pyramidal composition of tiers successively decreasing in height, is topped by a small dome and a spire soaring upward with a cross. The exterior of the church is austere and restrained. But inside the church astonishes with grandeur and beauty: the great dome of the church and the semi-dome of the altar are adorned with magnificent stucco decoration, and fragments of 19th-century frescoes have survived.
In the settlement of Krasnaya Gorka stands a genuine architectural marvel: the estate of Prince Obolensky. Unfortunately the late-19th-century estate house is now in ruins. Fire and callous, heartless human hearts did their work. Truly, we do not cherish what we have!
Until recently, this structure of red and white brick, set high above the Imza River with its intricate belt ornaments and two towers in the pseudo-Gothic style, was proudly called a castle! From its terrace and the windows facing the river, boundless vistas opened out, receding to the horizon.
The question of water supply was brilliantly solved at the estate! To fill the tank built into one of the towers, water from a spring gushing at the foot of a deep ravine was pumped up through pipes to a height of several dozen meters, and from the tank it went to the kitchen and to a fountain that played in the park in front of the castle.
The estate park at Krasnaya Gorka is small. Its area is a little over two hectares. It was laid out according to the recommendations of the well-known late-18th-century landscape architect Bolotov.
Eight age-old oaks surround a semicircular clearing and lend the landscape grandeur. A fountain once stood in the center of the clearing. The park is adorned by clustered plantings of lindens with 4 to 6 trunks each, growing mainly near the entrance to the park. Krasnogorsky Park is also a valuable collection of tree and shrub species. Here grew blue (prickly) spruce, western thuja, fir, spruce, maple, ash, oak and other trees. The age of the main species is about 200 years, with a height of 20 to 25 meters.
Unfortunately, the park territory is neglected and cluttered, and no work is being done to put it in order. The large clearing in the center of the park is overgrown with weeds and box elder. The fountain is destroyed.
Yet despite everything the park remains beautiful and majestic. It is, after all, the lungs of the settlement. It also reinforces the bank slopes along the The Imza River.
In the village of Nadezhdino, part of the Chugunovsky rural council, stands a house typical of the Vorotynsky District's well-to-do peasants, the so-called "poludomok" (half-house). It is distinguished by its high quality of workmanship and good state of preservation. This is the house of the Petrov family.
A wooden izba stands atop a brick storage cellar. The house faces the street with four large windows with window surrounds and shutters, richly decorated with carving. A cornice of thick planking encircles the facades of the house in a broad band. The frieze board, on which intricately intertwined shoots with leaves and grape clusters are carved, bears at its edges, in oval frames with wickerwork and leaves, the construction date "7392," carved in Old Slavonic letters. This is the year from the creation of the world, and it corresponds to 1884 of the Christian era.
The house's gable is likewise decorated with carving of leaves, flowers, and grape clusters. In the middle of the gable is a small three-part attic window with little columns and rosettes, with a large semicircular surround adorned with a flower and leaves. The house has preserved a Russian stove with elegant niches and a wooden hearth surround, a dish cupboard, benches and shelves, and a kitchen table-cabinet.
Far from the main road stands the small village of Shokino. But it is precisely here that another wonder of the Vorotynsky land is found — the Peter and Paul Church (1783). Until recently it looked as it does in this photograph. The wooden church, of the "octagon on quadrangle" type, was part of a complex of two churches. The neighboring Paraskeva Church (1723) has not survived. The low central volume of the Peter and Paul Church is topped by a faceted dome with a small second octagon and a cupola. The five-walled altar, hewn from timber "at the corner," is covered by a five-sloped roof. A small refectory adjoins it from the west. In the 19th century a bell tower was added to it, but it burned down. In 1872 the church was sheathed on the outside with boards, yet many of its details survived (for example, window surrounds of Baroque silhouette, repeating in wood the refined forms of stone buildings). These Baroque elements were combined with genuinely folk traditions.
The porches at the north and west entrances had two-sloped roofs with okhlupni (ridge covers shaped as horse heads) on top. Although these have not survived, their size, shape, and construction are clearly visible from the notches remaining on the logs. The west door is decorated with beautiful "faces" — overlays of pierced sheet iron. An example of fine work by folk craftsmen is the wrought-iron cross on the church's cupola. Today the monument is slowly but surely falling into ruin.
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Sadly this monument is no more... All because this church in the village of Shokino, Nizhny Novgorod Region, was needed by no one, and it collapsed | 
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The Vorotynsky District has 58 settlements in all. And each of them has monuments deserving a separate account, for each possesses its own particular beauty and history.
Song — the anthem of the Vorotynsky District, "Vorotynsky Corner"
(music by E. Istomina, lyrics by N. Timoshenko)
From Vasilsursk to Raznezhye,
Embracing the Sura and the Volga tenderly,
The forests beyond the Volga stand
And keep antiquity within them.
Shield of the Nizhny Novgorod land,
The Volga, our mother river.
The Vorotynsky corner
Has become glorious for the ages.
Our Vorotynets and the Maidans
And Gorki look down from on high.
Somovka, Fokino, Semyany —
Villages of wondrous beauty
Edge of the Nizhny Novgorod land,
The Volga, our mother river.
The Vorotynsky corner
Has become beloved for the ages
Trade is always honored here.
The shrine — the Orthodox church.
Both oil and gas are found here,
And every path leads to us.
Anthem of the Nizhny Novgorod land,
The Volga, our mother river.
The Vorotynsky corner
Has become a song for the ages.
References:
- Astashin A.E., Astashina N.I., Dyuzhakov A.M. In the Vorotynsky Land. — Cheboksary, 2009. — 168 p., illustrated.