page_title: Yaroslavl
section_title: Old town
hierarchical_section_title: Yaroslavl / Travel and culture / Architecture / Old town
caption_attribution_description: English: A church in Yaroslavl in the Morning Русский: Ярославль (Россия): Монастырь Спаса Преображения, звонница, построена 1506-1516. На рассвете.
context_page_description: Yaroslavl is a city and the administrative center of Yaroslavl Oblast, Russia, located 250 kilometers northeast of Moscow. The historic part of the city, a World Heritage Site, is located at the confluence of the Volga and the Kotorosl rivers. It is one of the Golden Ring cities, a group of historic cities northeast of Moscow that have played an important role in Russian history. In 2010, the city had a population of 591,486.
context_section_description: The old town is effectively triangular in shape; this triangle is formed by the natural border provided to the south and east by the Kotorosl and Volga rivers, and on the land side by the geometric pattern of the street plan, which dates from the 18th and 19th centuries.
  Constructed in 1506–1516 on the foundations of the original edifice dating back to 1216–1224. In the 16th century, the first stone wall is built around the monastery. It is from this monastery that an army of volunteers led by Minin and Prince Pozharsky set out to liberate Moscow from Polish invaders. In 1787, the monastery was closed and converted into a residence of the Yaroslavl and Rostov bishops. At that time, monastery buildings began to be reconstructed. New cells and the prior's chambers were built.
  The most well-known building in the city is the 'Spaso-Preobrazhensky' ('Transfiguration of the Savior') Cathedral of the Spassky (St Savior) Monastery (russ. Спасо-Преображенский монастырь). This monastery was founded in the 12th century and thus it, and its cathedral, are the oldest buildings in the city. The Transfiguration Cathedral itself, built in 1516, is the oldest detached building standing in the city, (Спасо-Преображенский собор). Typical for a Russian monastery of the Middle Ages, the Spaso-Preobrazhensky Monastery in Yaroslavl was not built to be no more than a place of worship, but also to be a citadel and kremlin in case, in times of war, there was a need for such a facility. This is still visible today as the monastery is surrounded by a thick 16th century, white-painted wall, complete with watchtowers and embattlements. Within these walls stand the magisterial churches, which, with their asymmetrically-ordered towers and beautifully decorated interiors, make for wonderful examples of traditional Russian sacral architecture. In addition to this there is a gatehouse church, with which the monastery's dungeons and treasury were connected. The monastery has long had a place in the history of Yaroslavl and continues, albeit nowadays as a museum, to play a significant role in the life of the city. It was largely thanks to the impregnability of the monastery that, during the time of the Troubles, the Russian peasants' army was able to defend the city and then go on to liberate Moscow from its Polish-Lithuanian occupiers. At the end of the 18th century, the oldest known text of the Tale of Igor's Campaign, the most renknowned work of Russian-language literature from the Middle Ages, was found in the library of the SPaso-Preobrazhensky Monastery. This masterpiece is now on display as a permanent exhibition within the monastery, along with other works of the age and an exhibition showing the conditions an author of the era would have lived in.
  The often hectic square which is to be found just beyond the north gate of the monastery (main gate), is called Bogolavyenskaya Square (Epiphany Square) (Богоявленская площадь). This name comes from the nearby Epiphany Church (Богоявленская церковь) which is seated at the south end of the square, near the bank of the Kotorosl. This church, with its five domes, and traditional Russian sacral architecture, is a classic example of a medieval Russian church. However, the church has a separate clock-tower which was built in accordance with the sacral-architectural style of Muscovy in the years 1684–1693; this all goes to make the church one of the most noticeable examples of 17th-century architecture in the city. In addition to this, the beautiful fresco-work inside the church was carried out by local artists during the building of the church, and has remained, almost unchanged, to this day.
  The two streets which lead off Bogolavyenskaya Square to the north-west are very good examples of the type of urban planning which was formulated for Yaroslavl in the 18th and 19th centuries. They were laid out in 1820–1821 as new boulevards to run around the historic city center and were built on terrain previously occupied by a number of earthen and wooden fortifications which dated from the 16th century. There was also 
caption: The belfry tower of the Spaso-Preobrazhensky Monastery
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