Shuya

Historical information
Temples
Museums
Handicrafts, trades
Accommodation    Shuya is situated on the picturesque bank of the river Teza and the Klyazma. Legends about this town are curious, they says, that it is one of the most ancient towns and in former times it was the Capital of Russia, and that the word “Shuya” in Sarmatian language means “capital”. An ancient settlement on the place of Shuya must have been founded by Finno-Ugrian tribes; and its name may come from the Finnish word, meaning “swamp, marshland”. According to order version, the name goes back to old Slavic word, meaning “on the bank of the river”.
    The first document about Shuya comes from to 1539. Shuya is mentioned in Nikonov’s annals among the cities ruined by Kazan Khan Safa-Girey. However, there are bases to assume, that the town existed already in the middle of the 14th century as a part of the Suzdal- Nizhnij Novgorod princedom. Princes Shuysky are mentioned since 1403, they owned the town almost 200 years. The Shuyskies come the beginning from Vasily Kirdjapa - one of the Suzdal princes. The representative of this family was Vasily Shuysky, the last tsar from the family of Rurikovi. As legends say, Vasily Shuysky frequently was in the ancestral lands.
    In the village Mill, according to the legend, the daughter of the tsar, Anna, is buried. The obsidian courtyards belonging to prince I.I.Shuysky, prince Pozharsky were in the Shuysky Kremlin.
    The attention of reigning persons to the town didn’t weaken during many centuries. Ivan the Terrible visited Shuya during a campaign to Kazan in 1549 and included in member of others of 19 cities, having declared it his own property. Then in 1572 according to Ivan the Terrible’s spiritual letter Shuya passed in the inheritance to his son Fedor.
    In 1722 Peter I visited Shuya on the way to the Persian campaign. He stayed in the town to put his lips on a local relic - a wonder-working icon Shuya-Smolensk God’s Mother, The icon was depicted by the icon painter in 1654 - 1655, when the ulcer raged in the town, soon after the depicting the icon epidemic had stopped. Peter I got rid of his illness too and wanted to take away a wonder-working icon to St.Petersburg. The townspeople, having learned about it, fell before the tsar on knees and begged to leave the Heavenly Patroness and Zastupnizu of the town in Shuya.
    In 1729 in Shuya the daughter of Peter I lived for some time, she liked to hunt in neighboring woods. In 1837 the future emperor Alexander II visited Shuya with a well-known Russian poet V.A.Zhukovsky. Having got acquainted with the sights of the town, he visited the houses of the most well known townspeople.
    Development of the industry and trade in Shuya was promoted by convenient position of the town, on the bank of the river Teza.
    In the 17th century Shuya was a large trading town with developed industry.
    There was a big courtyard (market) in Shuya, where merchants traded, even from abroad. In 1654 there was a shop of the Anglo-Arkhangelsk trading company, bringing the goods from Arkhangelsk. At the same time Shuya was famous for its fairs.
    In 1781 the Russian empress Katherine the Great asserted the coat of arms of Shuya. The ancient coat of arms represented a shield, divided into 2 parts. At the top part there is a lionish leopard, standing on hinder legs (a symbol of provincial city of Vladimir); at the bottom – “on the red background there is a bar of the soap, meaning town soap factories”.
    The production of the soap was the most ancient industry of the town Shuya. Other industry was the production of sheepskin coat.
    Since ancient times the textile industry, manufacture of linen fabrics, developed in Shuya. Wearing of linen was made in many houses of the town. From the middle of the 18th century there were weaver’s linen manufactories in Shuya. The very first manufactory of merchant Igumnov was open in 1755. However, the world market was captured by cotton by the end of the 18th century.
    Merchants of Shuya quickly began to deliver of cotton from England. The merchants played an important role in an accomplishment and creation of architectural shape of the town. By 1917 there had been 20 churches in Shuya.
    Shuya was always linked with Russian culture. The spiritual school of Shuya, one of the oldest in Russia, was graduated by I.V.Tsvetaev, the founder of the Moscow Museum of Fine Arts, father of the outstanding poetess of “silver age” of Marina Tsvetaeva.
    Today Shuya is the center of the textile industry. Woodworking industry, light industry and food production are also developed in Shuya. The known enterprises are the joint-stock company “Shuya according”, “Radio set”, open company “Shuyskaya Vodka” and others. IN the town you can find the State Pedagogical University, M.V.Frunze’s Memorial Museum, a Local Lore Museum.

Nikolo-Shartomsky monastery
Ivanovo region, Shuysky district, Vvedenye village

    The monastery is managed by Ivanovo and Kineshma Archbishop Amvrosy, his deputy archimandrite Nikon. It is grounded in honour of consecrator Nikolay , archbishop of the Lickiysky communities . The cloister received its name by the river which name before was the Shartoma. It was grounded before 1425 (there is a written evidence bearing on this year) in the Vvedenye village within 12 km from the Shuya town at flowing the Molokhta river into the Teza river. Acc. to a legend, the monastery was founded in the connection of an appearance in this place of the St. Nikolay - miracle man icon in the years of governing of a grand duke Vasily the Dark. In 1619 the monastery was ravaged by Polish-Lithuanian troops , in 1624 it was attacked again and in 1649 was burnt. In 1650-1651 a former wooden monastery was erected in stone. In 1650 it was built a cathedral church of St. Nikolay - miracle man , in 1678 - a church of the God’s Mother’s Kazanskaya icon , in 1696 was laid (sanctified in 1813) an above-gates church of the Transfiguration. The church of St. Grigory Akragantiysky was known by its ancient fretted holy gates. Under the supervision of the monastery there were nine small cloisters of the Vladimir diocese.
As a result of the 1764 canon reform the monastery was turned over into the 3d category one, its subordinated cloisters were turned over into parish ones. In the monastery there were kept : the Ostrovskaya Bible (published in 1580), the Ivan’s the Terrible manuscript Gospel, other valuable manuscripts and books. At the beginning of 1920-s years the monastery was closed , the values were requisitioned. In the following years the monastery buildings were used for house-hold needs. It was renewed on the 20.07.1990. The monastery carries out an spiritual enlightenment work, having a monkish existence visit schools visit schools, technical schools , organizations. Are engaged with building - repairing and agricultural works. Has built in Ivanovo a church of All-Grievings. Gladness (on the place of the church with the same name which was blown-up in 1976).
    The monastery has podvoryes in Ivanovo town (the church of the Most Holy Sergy Radonezhsky, and in Shuya town (the cathedral of the Resurrection and the church of the Most Holy Aleksiya – the God’s man) in Palekh (the church of the Exaltation of the Cross)
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Saint-Assumption nunnery
155602, Ivanovo region, Shuysky region, Dunilovo settlement
Tel.: (0935) 4-31-41

    The nunnery is managed by an abbess - Mother-Superior Olga (Sokolova), Grounded at the end of the XVII century in the Dunilovo village in flood-lands of the Tesa river by a boyar F.F. Lopukhin as a an all-residential men’s hermitage of the Assumption. There were built wooden churches: of the Assumption and of the Most Holy Virgin’s Intercession. In 1725 it was attached the Yuryev-Podolsky Archangelsky monastery and later was transferred under the authority of the St. Nikolo-Shartomsky monastery. In 1764 following the church reform it was abolished. Its property was turned over to the Dunilovsky nunnery of the Annunciation and wooden buildings were soon burnt. On the place of the closed hermitage it was built a summer church of the Assumption in 1819 and a winter church of the Intercession in 1849. After 1917 the churches were closed (in total there were 12 churches and 3 abodes. In the postwar years there was a psycho-neurological boarding house on the territory of the former abode. The church of the Intercession was used as patients’ room. The church of the Assumption - as a store-house. In 1991 it was grounded an all-residential nunnery on the territory of the former hermitage of the Assumption in honour of the God’s Mother’s Assumption. At an active sisters’ participation there were carried out restoration and renewal works in the summer church of the Assumption and in the winter church of the Intercession. In November 1995 all churches of the Dunilovo village were turned over by the order of Ivanovo and Kineshma Archbishop Amvrosy into the possession of the nunnery of the St, Assumption. Restoration works began in the church of the Exaltation of the Cross in 1996, in one of the most ancient Dunilovo monuments - in the nunnery of the Annunciation and its churches in 1998. The nunnery of St. Assumption is closed with a fence with corner turrets. It is opened an orphan-asylum with nunnery gymnasium for deserted children. There are organized icon-painting and gold-embroidery shops, a Sunday’s school’ a library. There is a sewing workshop, a farm, a granary and vegetable store, a hospital.
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Fedorovsky monastery of the Ascension
Ivanovo region, Shuysky district, Sergeyevo village

     He monastery is managed by Father-Superior Georgy (Ilyin).
    It was founded in 1881 by a rich landowner Shubina A.N. on the base of an estate which she bought at her uncle - landowner Markov N.N. A.N. Schubina had broad relations in Petersburg with the tsar’s court and higher priesthood. Blessing for cloister foundation she received from Joan Kronstadtsky.
    To her village which was named then Voskresenskoye-Sergiyevo she invited a community from Nizhegorodskaya province. At the beginning it was built a house with a church of the Fedorovskaya icon of the God’s mother, therefore the community became to be named Voskresensko-Fedorovskaya by the name of the village and the church. In 1889 the community was transformed to f cloister. In 1897 A.N. Shubina died, her grave is remained. The old estate house was adapted for the Mother-Superior’s building and the situated not far former church of Archangel-Mikhail became a cloister one. The abode became to be named St. Voskresenskaya (by the village name) and Fedorovskaya (by the church name). Since 1889 it is a nunnery. At first it was given the church of Archangel-Mikhail (in the Voskresensko-Sergiyevo village) and in 1987-1905 it was erected by the project of architect Begen a big cathedral in honour of the God’s Mother’s Assumption with two side altars: the right one in honour of the God’s mother icon - Serafimo-Ponetayevskaya “Znameniye” (“Signs”) and the left one in honour of the St. martyr – tsarina Aleksandra , divine patroness Aleksandra Shubina.
    There were built a stone fence, a bell tower, a refectory, residential buildings, house-hold buildings. In the nunnery there was an orphan-asylum. Many nuns busied themselves with painting therefor it was built a spacious “painting” building. There were not only painted icons and chased settings for icons but also were busy with a secular art : painted portraits, landscapes, went for painting sketches in the nunnery vicinities. Some nuns taught painting in Petersburg, in Serafimo-Diveyevsky nunnery. o its 25th anniversary in 1914 it was a wellbeing nunnery. The number of nuns and sisters exceeded three hundred persons. Since 1915 the Mother-Superior had become a nun Arseniya. In the Soviet period she succeeded in saving for a time the nunnery having reorganized it to an agricultural artel. During three years a well-known Metropolitan Serafim who was canonized lived there. In December 1929 the cloister was closed. There was located a colony of criminals under age. The Voskresenskaya church was destroyed, the Voskresensko-Sergiyevo was renamed to Sergiyevo. In 1953 the cloister premises were transferred to the Shuya agricultural technical secondary school. in the church of the Assumption it was located a repair shop. In the Archangelsky church - a dining-room. The refectory was changed to a club, the communion bread-room - to a shop.
    On the 24,08.1994 churches were transferred to the Russian orthodox church. I began cleaning the nunnery and the churches. In Archangelskaya church there began to hold regular God’s services. Since 1997-1998 God’ services have been holding also in the church of Assumption, Restoration and renewal of churches are continued.. On the 8-9.04.1998 the monastic community received the status of the monastery.
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Joint-stock company "Shuysky accordion"

Open Company "Shuyskaya stitch-embroidery factory"