Svetlana Semenova

There is a small fabulously beautiful town of Ples, Ivanovo region, and affectionately call it Russian Switzerland and the pearl of the Volga, Russian gem and emerald of the north. And it is located on 7 hills, and the hills are located on the dome and therefore in the town amazing things happen. You want to know which ones? Then rather on the way - you will find the charm of the Volga landscapes, which inspired Levitan to create masterpieces-landscape mood, a special air saturated with phytoncides, the fascinating atmosphere of a distinctive quiet poetic town.

• Thematic tour.
• Interesting moments of Plesa-border city, Vladimir-Suzdal principality, and then the Moscow state.
• Duration of 2 hours. Individual tour (up to 10 people)
• Russian.

Ples was founded in the 1st half of the 12th century on lands belonging to the Finno-Ugric tribe of Merya. The first chronicles of the city are dated April 1141. Ples was mentioned in the Novgorod chronicle in connection with the fact that the Novgorod posadnik Yakun was caught here, who fled with Prince Svyatoslav from the wrath of the Novgorodians under the hand of Vladimir-Suzdal prince Yuri Dolgoruky. Yurievskaya Street at the foot of the Cathedral Mountain is named in honor of the founder of the first Plesian fortress, Prince Yuri Dolgorukov. Ples immediately received the status of a city.

The city was built on the high right bank of the Volga, as a military, border fortress, which was supposed to protect the northern borders of Vladimir-Suzdal Rus from constant military invasions of Volga Bulgaria.

The commercial and craft population of the city was located on the posad, located at the foot of the Cathedral Mountain on the territory of the modern embankment and Zarechye. The first Plesian fortress died in February 1238 among many Russian cities during the first invasion of the Russian lands by the Tatar-Mongols, headed by Batu.
In 1410, on the Cathedral Hill in Plyos, where the first fortress once stood, at the behest of Moscow Prince Vasily Dmitrievich, the son of Dmitry Donskoy, a second military fortress was built.

You will learn the features of the construction of the second Plessky fortress and see the foundation of the medieval tower - a modern reconstruction.
The power of "Mr. Veliky Novgorod" was largely based on trade, so Novgorod merchants spared no money for organizing the campaigns of robbers - "Ukuynik" or "river pirates". Uskhuins plundered cities, captured Russian people, who were then sold into slavery on the border with the Golden Horde. The last expedition of the Ushkiniki on the Volga took place in 1409, since in 1410 the Plesian customs and defense system was built.
In 1471, Afanasy Nikitin also came to Ples.

Secret weapon: a stone labyrinth. Stone shoal, stretching along the riverbed for 3 km. and crossed the river indiscriminately, from shore to shore and consisting of stone ridges: Wine and Spit, which could be overcome only with the help of a pilot.

The checkpoint system, like the fortress, functioned until the complete unification of the Russian principalities into a single state, that is, until the end of the XVI century. And stone ridges were overcome with the help of Plesi pilots until the fifties of the XX century, until the water in the Volga was raised by 8 m in connection with the construction of the Gorky reservoir.

The last military battle on the territory of Ples was in 1609, when an uprising broke out against the Polish-Lithuanian invaders, and at the end of March 1612 from Reshma and Kineshma to Ples came the militia of Minin and Pozharsky and not by chance, since Ples Town, which resisted the interventionists.

• Sightseeing tour of Ples.
• Volga pearl on seven hills.
• Duration of 2.5 hours. The tour is individual (up to 10 people).
• Russian.

One of the most original small towns in Russia is the city of Plyos, Ivanovo region. Ples is a collection of unique monuments of history, culture and nature. This is a city of amazing fate: a military fortress of Moscow princes on the Volga trade route, the administrative center of the vast Plesian church tithe, the trade gate of the Ivanovo-Voznesensky industrial district, a quiet country town that has become a place of pilgrimage for artists, writers, artists.

Our route starts from Trinity Sloboda or Nagorny Sloboda. Mountain Sloboda, located at the southern entrance to the territory of the fortress, has preserved both the historical name and free layout to this day. In the first third of the XIX century, it was decorated with the so-called ensemble of the Trinity Churches, consisting of the Trinity and Vvedensky temples, which meet all those coming to Ples by land transport. In 1808, in the Nagorny Sloboda, in the center of the Shui and Nerecht tracts, the first Plesian stone parish church of the Trinity of Life was built. And in 1828, next to him, at the expense of merchants Gavriil Semenovich and Dmitry Vasilyevich Chastukhins, a winter Vvedenskaya church was built. The memories of Sophia Petrovna Kuvshinnikova, an artist, student and close friend of Levitan, about how they visited the service in the Trinity Church on a festive day: When the blessing of flowers began, and poetic words of prayer were heard, Levitan moved to tears and whispered: Listen, this is amazing. Oh, my God, that's good! This is not a prayer, nor is it a prayer. It's a world prayer." Levitan often told his friends that beauty, spilled in nature, "you can pray as God and ask her for inspiration, faith in yourself."

Then our route to the Cathedral Mountain, which rises over the Volga more than 60 m. and is the highest point in the northern part of the Upper Volga. This is the heart of the protected Ples and a favorite place for walks by locals and tourists. "" It offers amazing views of the Volga, the embankment, Mount Levitan and Zarechye.

The oldest monument of the history of the city is a tall earthen rampart overgrown with grass and centuries-old trees, preserved to this day since 1410.

In 1778, by decree of Catherine the Great, the Kostroma governorship was created, in which the Plessky district was allocated, located on both banks of the Volga. In Ples, a place was determined for the administration of the county on the Cathedral Hill in the Present Places.

The monument to the founder of the city to the Grand Duke of Moscow Vasily Dmitrievich was erected in 1910 in honor of the 500th anniversary of Ples. On the pedestal made of black marble, there is an inscription in gilded letters: "It was built in the reign of Emperor Nicholas II in memory of the 500th anniversary of the city of Plyos, founded by Grand Duke Vasily Dmitrievich, the son of Grand Duke Dmitry Donskoy and two dates are indicated: 1410 - the year of the foundation of the city and 1910 - the year of its anniversary. The author of the bust is Moscow sculptor Sergey Aleshin.

The Cathedral of the Assumption of the Most Holy Theotokos appeared on the Cathedral Hill in 1699 after a fire in 1695 that engulfed the former wooden church, and almost completely repeated its outlines. Built of bleached stone, simple and at the same time incredibly beautiful, the Assumption Cathedral became the visual center of Plyos.

Grand Duke Vasily Dmitrievich is considered the founder of Plyos, but it should be noted that the fortress he built was not built from scratch. In the second half of the 12th century, a small fortress was already functioning here, founded by Prince Vsevolod Yurievich as an outpost of Russian colonization of the Volga coast and as a stronghold of North-Eastern Russia in the struggle against the state of the great Bulgars for the Volga trade route. The fortress originally occupied the protrusion of the Cathedral Mountain, and at the mouth of Shokhonka there were a pier, a stall and a posad. In February 1238, the city was besieged by the troops of Batu Khan.

A new stage in the history of Plyos began in 1410, when, at the behest of Grand Duke Vasily Dmitrievich, a new fortress began to be built here, which already occupied the entire territory of the Cathedral Mountain. Vasily 1 built not only a large, but also the most technically advanced wooden fortress of that time. It had to confront the new main threat of all fortresses - artillery, which was actively involved in military use. The towers and walls of the new Volga fortress of 1410 were multilayered. In such a wall you can not punch through a hole. Even if with the help of guns, at the cost of spending a large number of nuclei falling into one point, it will be possible to split a section of the outer log layer and even knock out several filling stones - a six-meter high loose layer will only sit through, quite imperceptibly, firmly jamming the hole with its huge weight. We will go to the base of the bottled tower (modern reconstruction) and open the view of the Volga channel, visible down and upstream.

Large bazaars were arranged in the Bazaar Square. Every year in July, a three-day fair was held on Petrov City Day. Another, equestrian fair was held in autumn for the feast of the Intercession. At the time of the fair on the market square were put bazaars, tents for the sale of various household goods: pottery, handicrafts of wood, toys including whistles - chums. According to legend, confirmed by archaeologists, near the present Plyos in the 12-13 centuries there was a settlement of Chuville. In the explanatory dictionary of Dahl, the Volga word "hull" is given, which means a bird, a bird, a whistle. According to legend, the surrounding forests, ravines, valleys of ancient Chuville were announced by the singing of countless birds, so the area was called the "bird kingdom" - Chuville.

The current appearance of the embankment owes to a cunning engineering structure hidden deep beneath it. At the end of the XVIII century, underground wooden drainages were laid, through which groundwater flowed into the Volga. On the small space of the embankment, all epochs and styles closely coexist: here and the "noble nest" of the early XIX century - the house of the Moiseev landowners with a four-column Tuscan portico, and the cottage of the manufacturer Pavlov, created in the early XX century in the Art Nouveau style. Houses on the embankment in two, rarely in three floors, preserved for us the unique appearance of a typically philistine and merchant town: the upper floors, designed for state rooms, decorated more whimsically, the lower with thick walls and flap ceilings served for household purposes, there were warehouses and shops.

Wealthy townspeople kept mills and leather enterprises, brewed malt and beer, conducted trade.The inhabitants were victorious, made dishes and troughs from wood, made blue boxes, weaved horns. Plesov axes were considered the best in the Volga region.

Zarechye is located behind the Shokhonka River, which flows into the Volga. Since the reign of Ivan the Fourth, Ples was considered a major supplier of fish for the royal court, sturgeon and sterlet were caught here in large quantities. In winter, along the sleigh path, the fish were delivered to Moscow, in summer they were harvested for the future: dried, dried and salted. Fish Sloboda was a fairly large area of the city, of the 129 courtyards mentioned in the scribe books of the 17th century, of which 72 were fishermen, more than 400 people lived here. The skills of enterprising citizens, who have long lived in fishing, having improved over the centuries, have reached virtuosity here: “ Residents perfectly used the jets of keys, in a lot of beating from the mountain. They put these keys through their yards, which have fish cages, and the water goes through them, and it goes through the gutters, where it is taken for home use. "" The cages are arranged so that even in the winter they can not freeze. In these cages, sterlets and other inhabitants of the Volga waters swim in clean key water; the owner before dinner for his family, or wanting to sweat a good guest, goes out to the yard, chooses any, dresses the doomed sake and ... in a pan! This kind of garment is rarely seen!

Now Zarechye is a favorite place of summer residents and artists.

Excursion: "Revived Levitan landscapes".

“The whole life, all the work of Levitan passed over his beloved country, over its nature beneficial rain,” wrote the artist G. Nissky, – after him, a wonderful rainbow shone over the Russian landscape, into the gates of which all artists who love their country, their people, their nature should pass. I. Grabar called Levitan “the greatest and wisest master of the Russian landscape”. Korovin recalled that Levitan often could not hold back tears, looking at nature. In it is the truth that is revealed when “the heart sees the Divine in everything,” as the philosopher I. Ilyin said. Levitan himself admitted, "but what to do, I can not be at least a little happy, calm, in short, do not understand myself outside of painting." I have never loved nature so much, I have never been so sensitive to it, I have never felt so strongly this divine thing, spilled in everything, but that not everyone sees, that even it cannot be called, because it is not amenable to reason, analysis, but is comprehended by love. Without this feeling, there can be no true artist.

The fate of the city of Ples is inextricably linked with the name of the great Russian artist Isaac Levitan. Today we will get acquainted with the life and work of Isaac Levitan in Ples, see the house-museum of Levitan, the monument to the painter and his favorite Plesian landscapes.

Isaac Levitan was born in 1860, near the Lithuanian railway station of Kibarty in an educated but poor family. During his studies, Levitan lived hand-in-hand, especially after the death of both parents. The artist M. Nesterov recalled: about “an extremely beautiful elegant Jewish boy there were legends associated with his plight (for example, they said that he did not have a lodging, sleeps in the attic of the old Yushkov house, known as the haunted house”). Undoubtedly, the interest in his person among his peers and older comrades was fueled by the fact that Levitan already then discovered an outstanding talent and was strongly distinguished among his fellow students. Jewish origin has repeatedly caused trouble in the life of the artist. He graduated from the school with a diploma of a “non-class artist”, which gave him the opportunity only to teach cleanliness: it was secretly known that members of the attestation commission considered it inappropriate that the Jewish young man too audaciously declares his involvement in the Russian landscape. The artist was expelled from Moscow twice. For the first time in the years of study in 1879, when the imperial administration initiated the eviction of Jews from the capital in connection with the attempt on Alexander 2, committed by the Narodolov Solovyov; and in 1892, for the second time, Levitan is already a well-known artist again forced to leave Moscow (eviction in 24 hours were all Jews). Then Levitan had to hide in the Vladimir province, until friends and influential well-wishers (such was P. Tretyakov, who constantly bought works from the artist) achieved the abolition of deportation. It is noteworthy in this context the phrase of A. Chekhov: “The Jew Levitan is worth five Russians.”

Levitan had a delightful noble face—I rarely saw such expressive eyes later, such a rare artistic combination of lines. He had a big nose, but in the overall harmony of facial features it was not noticed at all. The women found him beautiful, he knew it and flirted strongly in front of them. Interestingly, Vasily Polenov chose Isaac Levitan as a model for depicting Christ in the painting “Dreams”.

After 1894, Isaac Levitan received the title of academician of landscape painting and began to teach. The artist dreamed of the House of Landscapes, a spacious workshop in which all Russian landscape painters could work side by side. One day, dreaming, Levitan said to his disciples: “And what, gentlemen, if we become famous as Barbizonians!” I'll save money in the Lyon loan, buy out my workshop, and when I'm a very old kalosha or die, you'll build a landscape house in it. Already at the end of the 1870s Levitan began to paint his mood landscapes, in which he not only depicted nature, but also expressed his own feelings.

In 1887 Levitan met Kuvshinnikova, who kept a salon in Moscow. Levitan taught Sophia painting, they spent a lot of time together. In 1887 Levitan went to the Volga. The first trip did not impress the artist. A year later Levitan again went to the Volga region, but together with Kuvshinnikova. Levitan first visited Plyos in the spring of 1888 with his friends Kuvshinnikova and Stepanov. Artists traveled up the Volga on a steamer in search of picturesque places for sketches. The decision to stop came immediately, as soon as a high green hill appeared because of the turn, and on it - a small wooden church and churchyard crosses near it. Kuvshinnikova recalled: At last we got to Plyos, and he immediately fascinated us. We decided to stop, rented two rooms near the shore of the town turned out to be a premium corner, amazingly beautiful, poetic and quiet. We have been doing remarkably well.”” Having collected their luggage, they went down the old villages to the embankment, along which, “like pieces of white sawn sugar” lined up in a series of merchant mansions. Their unusual luggage with easels, etudels and umbrellas from the sun caused an undisguised curiosity among local residents. Sophia Petrovna Kuvshinnikova recalled: We found two rooms near the shore and with the help of hay, carpets, two tables and several benches arranged bivouac. The reckless life of our bohemian, of course, made a strong impression here. The artist here was an unprecedented bird. We've got questions and conversations. Who? How? Why? Why? In the bazaar, all the news about us was reported, what we eat, where we go. But somehow, it soon went quiet. We quickly got used to it, and we were patient. All day long we wandered about the shore and the surrounding area, and every day our huge umbrellas from the white canvas, which we ourselves washed with blue, stood out from the hot light that penetrated this umbrella.

Here Levitan worked extraordinarily hard and fruitfully. He was attracted by golden-headed temples and a wooden church on the top of the mountain, a steep river bank and chamber courtyards, panoramic views and quiet streets, shining with the freshness of a birch grove and gentle wildflowers. The artist accepted Ples as a real “paradise for a landscape painter” and it was here that he experienced the rise that determined his further creative life. In just three seasons in Ples, he wrote about 200 paintings: 23 canvases, as well as sketches, sketches, sketches. According to Nesterov: "... a series of Volga sketches and paintings brought the beginning of real fame to Levitan." They say, “Levitan discovered Ples, Ples glorified Levitan.” “We lived amazingly well,” recalled Kuvshinnikov. Even Levitan ceased to mope, and this mood was reflected in his paintings. Chekhov told him, “Your paintings even have a smile on them.” Ples became for Levitan that cherished corner, where the artist came more than once to find inspiration. Nesterov wrote: There the art of Levitan became stronger, received its face. Completely new techniques and great skill amazed us all the sketches and paintings that Levitan brought to Moscow from the Volga. An outstanding artist, contemporary of Levitan Mikhail Nesterov wrote: Levitan was a “realist” in the deep, imperishable sense of the word: a realist not only of form, of color, but also of the spirit of a subject often hidden from our external gaze. K. Paustovsky noted: Levitan left about 100 autumn paintings, not counting sketches. They depicted things familiar from childhood: lonely golden birches, not yet covered with wind; the sky, like thin ice; shaggy rains over forest cuttings. But in all these landscapes, whatever they depict, the sadness of farewell days, crumbled leaves, decaying grasses, the quiet humming of bees before the cold and the winter sun, barely warming the earth, is best conveyed. It seems that Levitan reveals to us in every bleak corner, in every mown shack and every faint swamp a special singing beauty. Anton Chekhov wrote: “That from the paintings of Levitan blows inexpressible charm, that it is impossible to break away: everything would look at them and look at them.” To such an amazing simplicity and clarity of motive, to which Levitan has recently reached, no one has reached him, and I do not know whether anyone will come after. In Chekhov’s novel “Three Years” there is an episode where the heroine at an art exhibition considers a painting in the description of which Levitan’s “Quiet Abode” is quite recognizable: In the foreground of the river, through it a log bridge, on that bank a path disappearing into the dark grass ... And in the distance burns the evening dawn... And suddenly it seemed to her that these clouds... She has seen the forest and the field many times. And she wanted to walk and walk and walk along the path, and where there was evening dawn, there was a reflection of something unearthly, eternal, an ocean of pure joy and undimmed bliss. The artist Alexander Benois recalled the appearance of this picture at the exhibition: “It seemed that the shutters were removed from the windows, they opened them wide, and a stream of fresh, fragrant air poured into the old exhibition hall.” The witty Chekhov could not deny himself the pleasure of remembering the name of his friend “in vain” – he formed the adjective “levitative” and widely used it in everyday life. In his letters there are lines: “Nature here is much more levitative than yours”, “I will come to you beautiful as Levitan”, “he was languid as Levitan”. Although the lion’s share of Levitan’s heritage consists of landscapes, among his works there are no less penetrating portraits and still lifes. They also feel admiration for God’s creations and a sense of frailty, transience and fragility of earthly existence. Art historian Vladimir Petrov wrote: Works in this genre of Levitan can hardly be called “dead nature”, so they feel not just the artist’s enjoyment of the beauty of the form and color of flowers, but also “respect” for them feels that for him they were, as he himself said in the late 1890s to his students, “living”, poured juice, reaching for the sun. Isaac Ilyich Levitan himself admitted that in the painting “Above Eternal Peace” he was all with his whole psyche, with all its content. Levitan was always looking for motive and mood. After Levitan’s death, 40 unfinished paintings remained. Levitan died on July 22, 1900, Levitan was buried in the old Jewish cemetery, and in 41 his ashes were transferred to the Novodevichy cemetery and placed next to the graves of his friends Chekhov and Nesterov.

The painting "Autumn Mill". Ples" - the most significant among the presented works of Levitan at the 8th periodic exhibition of paintings of the Moscow Society of Art Lovers 18 88-1889. The landscape of Plesa, the Shokhonka river flowing into the Volga, was painted by the artist several times from different viewpoints. Ples, like its surroundings, are characterized by a combination of lyricism and scope, softness and powerful abundance. The landscape invites the viewer to walk around the area, and a special silence and alertness poured into the landscape, like nature, awaits the audience and froze in silence. The painting “After the Rain. Ples” is a thin and rich display of nature in connection with the life of a small, typical Volga town. Here the life of people, its traces - houses and a church, barges and boats running along the river steamer - play a large role in the image, color the landscape with a special content. The depicted objects are as expressive and emotional as the state of the weather, and together form what can be called the emotional atmosphere of the landscape, its lyrical direct sound.

The painting “Birch Grove” with a fascinating range of emerald green flowers in different shades and transitions depicts a very modest and simple motif of nature. However, in terms of poetry and painting skills, it belongs to one of the best works of Levitan. Having begun work on the painting in Babkin in 1885, he finished it only in the summer of 1889 in Plyos, when he developed in practice his theory of plein-air tonal painting with subtle transitions of light in dim light. Plein-air painting finally destroyed the gray shadows: they became transparent and colored in light and pure tones. From the picture as if blows freshness and smells of a summer sunny day in the forest, there is a sense of joy and freedom of the summer flowering of nature life.

Painting: "Evening. Golden Ples." - one of the masterpieces of Levitan, full of soft noble harmony. The picture from a bird's eye view captures the view of the Volga and the artist's favorite town of Ples at the end of the summer day. With amazing sensitivity, the feeling of peaceful silence, the soft glow of golden pink pre-sunset light, the gentle haze of fog floating over a wide river and enveloping the smooth outlines of churches standing on the shore and houses with a red roof are conveyed. Almost physically felt evening freshness of air, juicy and aroma of herbs covering the hillside. Everything is filled with a sense of the integrity of life, beauty and joy of being: “It seems that now the bell will strike, and prayerful words involuntarily come to mind: Glory to God in the highest, and peace on earth, and goodwill in people.”