Zaraysk

Zaraysk is a city in the Russian Federation, the district center of the Moscow region, located 164 km southeast of Moscow.

The city stands on the river Sturgeon (previously called Red, Novorodok-on-Ostur, the city of Nikola Zarazsky on Sturgeon).

The population is 22,772 (2020).

The city has been known since the 13th century, but the exact date of its foundation is unknown. According to legend, the name of the city is associated with the death of Princess Evpraxia Chernigovskaya, who, when threatened to get into the concubines of Khan Batuya, jumped out of the high tower - "infected."

After the annexation of Zaraysk to the Moscow state, in 1525-1531, a stone Kremlin with watchtowers was erected in the city, which has survived to this day. Zaraysk several times in the 16th century repulsed the raids of the Horde.

At the beginning of the 17th century, near the city on the river Sturgeon, there were several battles of peasants led by Bolotnikov with the troops of Tsar Vasily Shuysky, while Zaraysk was seriously damaged. Even more damage was inflicted on the city by the Polish troops of Colonel Lisovsky, who managed to defeat in 1609 the detachment of Prokopi Lyapunov. In 1610, D. M. Pozharsky was appointed voivode of Zaraysk, who successfully repulsed the attack of False Dmitry supporters, and then went on a campaign and liberated Moscow from the invaders.

In the 18th century, Zaraysk became a trading and craft center, but the Ryazan road laid in 1847 bypassed the city, which reduced its economic importance.

In the second half of the 19th century, the German merchant A. Raeders opened two factories in Zaraysk - a shoe and a feather-puff factory, which became the basis for the light industry of Zaraysk.

During the Great Patriotic War, the city was on the front line, in December 1941, German troops came close to the city, but six days later they were thrown back by the troops of General P. A. Belov.

The historical center of Zaraysk is a stone Kremlin created on the site of Ostrog - a wooden fortress that has not survived to this day with a system of moats and ramparts. The Kremlin was built by order of Prince Vasily III, in plan it is a rectangle (139 by 190 m) with brick walls lined with white stone, four corner faceted towers and three pass rectangular towers.

On the territory of the Kremlin is the St. Nicholas Cathedral, erected by decree of Tsar Fyodor Alekseevich in 1681. The cathedral is interesting with three richly decorated carvings and wooden sculpture iconostasis of the 18th century in the Baroque and Rococo style. Here is located the classicist church of John the Forerunner (1821).

The urban architecture of Zaraysk was badly damaged in the fire of 1860. Among the surviving monuments of temple architecture are the Baroque Annunciation Church (1777 - early 19th century), the slender Trinity Church (1776-1788) of the "eight-and-four" type, as well as the Ilyinsk Church (1825), characterized by a massive domed rotunda. Zaraysk has preserved the typical features of the old Russian provincial city. Among the monuments of civil architecture are Gostiny Dvor (18th century), City Magistrate and City Council (19th century). Interesting in its design four-tier water tower of the early 20th century. Zaraysk is connected with the history of one of the most respected families in pre-revolutionary Moscow - the Old Believer family of merchants Bakhrushin. A. A. Bakhrushin founded the world’s first theater museum in Moscow.

The ancestor of the Bakhrushins was the Tatar Bakhrush from Kasimov, who adopted Orthodoxy at the end of the 16th century and moved to Zaraysk.

12 km from Zaraysk is the village of Darovoe, where F. M. Dostoevsky spent his childhood and where he often came in adulthood. The father of the writer M. A. Dostoevsky bought this village in 1831, and in 1833 he bought the nearby village of Cheremoshnya, where F. M. Dostoevsky also liked to visit. The village of Cheremoshnya is mentioned in the novel "Brothers Karamazov", and the village of Darovoy is described in the story "Man Mary". In Darovoy from the landlord's estate preserved a small wooden wing (in which in Soviet times placed a library) and a garden grove.