Visiting Santa Claus

 

The legal home of Santa Claus since Soviet times was considered the North Pole. However, in 1999, on the initiative of the Moscow mayor Yuri Luzhkov, it was decided to “transfer” him from the inhospitable latitudes of the Arctic closer to people. So in Russia started the project "Great Ustyu - the birthplace of Santa Claus.

 

The idea itself was, of course, more than fantastic, but surprisingly easily passed the thorny path of implementation in practice. Today in Ustyug there are special programs for receiving tourists, the corresponding thematic infrastructure, tourist trains from Moscow, St. Petersburg, Vologda go to the city, and a specialized bus service is also established. Now there is a real “office” of Santa Claus with a post office, a museum and a throne room. Here you can take pictures with him, send greeting cards with his autograph and even make small crafts in the local workshops. And in the entertainment center "The Fatherland of Santa Claus" ride horses, snowmobiles, skates and skis.

 

However, in Veliky Ustyug, Santa Claus lives a truly rich life not only for the New Year, but throughout the winter. At the end of December, he leaves his forest residence to inaugurate the holiday period, and welcomes guests in his home until the last days of March. All this time the city hosts various performances, folk festivals and festivals of Russian cuisine. But as soon as the first month of spring comes to an end, the lord of winter returns to his forest dwelling to rest from the many troubles and worries. The next time he’s in public, it’s only in the summer. In mid-June, when Veliky Ustyug celebrates his birthday, Santa Claus traditionally joins the celebration, congratulating citizens during the solemn part.

 

But Veliky Ustyug is also a real open-air museum, famous for its folk crafts and characteristic architecture. At the local factory "Velikoustyug patterns" make painted toys and caskets of birch bark, widely known products of the plant "Northern Rabbi", made in a unique technique of blackening on silver. And the surviving merchant and ancient church buildings create in Ustyug a unique flavor of this ancient Russian city.

 

Particularly impressive is the main temple complex of the Great Ustyug - the Cathedral Palace. It includes the five-domed Assumption Cathedral, built in the middle of the seventeenth century, the same ancient church of John of Ustyuzhansky, beautifully decorated with curly decor and tiles, as well as the Procopius of the Righteous Cathedral of 1668 and the two-storey Bishops’ House. Be sure to see the Church of the Ascension at the auction, the construction of which is dated 1648, whose elegant aisles, galleries and tent bell tower are real pearls of Ustyuzh architecture.

 

Meanwhile, the oldest temple of the Great Ustyug is considered to be the Mikhailo-Arkhangelsk monastery, which according to the chronicle was founded in 1212. Over time, a real architectural ensemble grew here, in the center of which is a monumental cathedral with five chapters. In front of the entrance there is the colorful Vladimir Gate Church, and on the right there is the Church of the Introduction with a refectory chamber, in addition, a small church of the Reverence of Pentecost is very nearby, a monument built over the burial place of the founding father of the monastery of St. Cyprian.

 

Also of interest is the church complex of the Dymkovskaya Sloboda with two churches of the eighteenth century and the Trinity-Gleden Monastery, located four kilometers from the city and famous for its royal carved gates and iconostasis. Of the monuments of “secular” architecture, it is worth paying attention to the Shilov stone house – one of the samples of the Baroque style characteristic of the era of the reign of Empress Catherine II, to the two-storey house of the merchant Usov, the mansions of Alenev, Kuznetsov and Zakharov.

 

An amazing fate for the Great Ustyug! Its inhabitants were inscribed in the history of our country a lot of glorious pages, from here came many brave explorers and sailors - it is worth mentioning only the names of Semyon Dezhnev and Yerofey Khabarov. In ancient times it happened to the city to visit one of the shopping centers of our country, to become the richest city of Russia, the center of art crafts and crafts. And perhaps a new turn in his fate, which happened ten years ago, is not a mockery of the glorious past, but rather a new stage in the life of Ustyug. A magical, amazing path on which long-gone times come to life again and again in the enchanting whirlwind of a New Year's fairy tale.

 

 

Anton Gataulin