Goritzy

Sunday, 23 May, 2010
Goritzy

Some time after leaving Yaroslavl we came to last of the locks on the Volga River but this time instead of going down in the lock to sail out water was flooded in and the boat rose around ten metres. Sailing out of the lock, on a point of land before entering a lake, was the statue of Mother Volga.

During the night we entered the Shekna River and arrived at Goritzy in the morning, a little later than our scheduled time which was unfortunate given the history of the area.

Goritzy is a small village with a population of around 1300, however, it is visited by many holiday cruise ships whose passengers make the 7km journey by bus to the Kirillov-Belozersky Russian Orthodox Monastery on the shore of the White Lake (Lake Siverskoye) and we were no exception. Leaving our ship a bus took us past some fascinating wooden houses, almost all of the buildings in this region were made of wood which was not surprising given the huge woods and the large national park nearby.

There are two religious establishments in the area, the Kirillov-Belozersky monastery and the Goritzy nunnery, both of which have powerful historical associations with Ivan the Terrible. The Kirillov-Belozersky monastery features at both the beginning and end of Ivan's life. Before he was born, his parents prayed here for God to give them an heir. Then when Ivan was an old sick man dying in agony he begged the monks here to pray for God to forgive him his bloody deeds. Apparently the monks believed that the terrible Tsar had changed and were even waiting for him to become a monk, but it never happened!

The Kirillov-Belozersky monastery dates back to 1397 when monk called the Kirill (Cyril) who came from a wealthy family, decided to leave the easy life in Moscow as a result of a vision and look for a remote place where he could become closer to God and he originally built a wooden church on the site of the monastery.

The new monastery prospered and in the 16th century, it was the largest monastery and the second richest landowner in Russia and became a refuge for many nobles during the Time of Troubles. The monastery walls, 732 meters long and 7 meters thick, were constructed in 1654-80. They incorporate parts of the earlier citadel, which helped to withstand the Polish siege in 1612. Unfortunately, it couldn't resist the Bolsheviks who ordered the monks to be shot or sent to labour camps, though it was one of few monasteries which were not turned into concentration camps. The monastery managed to preserve much of its historic treasures and under Soviet control it was turned into a museum and contains the oldest surviving icons in Russia. The museum has a large collection of treasures and icons which were saved from the Bolsheviks, including items of apparel and personal possessions belonging to the founder, St Cyril.

Peter the Great also visited the monastery but not for religious purposes, taking away its bells for the metal to make canons to fight the Swedes and also forcing the young Monks into the army and navy.

The nearby nunnery was founded in 1554 by Princess Efrosiniya, the wife of one of Ivan the Terrible's sons. Unfortunately, she became one of Ivan's numerous victims, when Ivan began to suspect her and her son of treason, and the tsar had her cruelly drowned in the river Shekna. Worse was to follow, when Ivan turned the monastery into his own personal harem, his first and fourth wives were also exiled here.

After a short visit to such an interesting place we returned to the ship which sailed at 1:00 pm. About three hours after sailing we passed a Church built in the 1700s which was a victim of the flooding caused by the canal construction.