Yaroslavl (; Russian: Ярославль, IPA: [jɪrɐˈsɫavlʲ]) is a city and the administrative center of Yaroslavl Oblast, Russia, located 250 kilometers (160 mi) northeast of Moscow. The historic part of the city is a World Heritage Site, and is located at the confluence of the Volga and the Kotorosl rivers. It is part of the Golden Ring, a group of historic cities northeast of Moscow that have played an important role in Russian history. The population of the city at the 2021 census was 577,279.
History
Reportedly the capital of an independent Principality of Yaroslavl from 1218, it was incorporated into the Grand Duchy of Moscow in 1463 (de jure 1471).
In the 17th century, it was Russia's second-largest city, and for a time (during the Polish occupation of Moscow in 1612), the country's de facto capital. Today, Yaroslavl is an important industrial center (petrochemical plant, tire manufacturing plant, diesel engines plant and many others). It developed at the confluence of major rivers, which were important for transportation and, later, for power. Because of the city's importance, several major railways and later highways were constructed to intersect here.
Early Yaroslavl
The oldest settlement in the city is to be found on the left bank of the Volga River in front of the Strelka (a small cape at the confluence of the Volga and Kotorosl); this dates from the 5th–3rd millennium BCE.
In the 9th century the so-called Rus' Khaganate formed, near Yaroslavl, a large Scandinavian-Slavic settlement in Timerevo. It is known for a surviving range of burial mounds. When excavations were carried out, a large number of artifacts, including Scandinavian weapons with runic inscriptions, chess pieces, and the largest collection of Arabian coins (treasure) in northern Europe (the earliest were struck in the first Idrisid), were found. In Timerevo the fourth set of Scandinavian brooches ever found in Russia was discovered. Apparently, this "proto-Yaroslavl" was a major center for the Volga trade route. Soon after the founding of Yaroslavl, the settlement went into decline, probably in connection with the termination of the operation of the Volga trade route. Upstream of the Volga River, just outside the boundaries of the modern city, archaeologists have studied a large necropolis with a predominance of ordinary graves of the Finno-Ugric-type.
Foundation of the city
Based on its earliest date of foundation, Yaroslavl is the oldest of all the existing towns on the Volga. Yaroslavl was founded by Yaroslav the Wise, a prince of Kievan Rus', during the period of his ruling the Principality of Rostov (988—1010) when he stepped ashore for the first time near the area now known as 'Strelka.' This is used as a contemporary park. On this spot, which was well protected from attack by the high, steep banks of the Volga, Kotorosl and Medveditsa rivers, Yaroslavl and his men began to set about building the first Yaroslavl Kremlin. The first recorded event of Yaroslavl occurred as a result of famine; it was recorded as the Rostov Uprising of 1071. The name of the city is traditionally linked to that of its founder: Yaroslav.
By the 12th century, the Petropavlovsky and Spaso-Preobrazhensky monasteries of Yaroslavl had already been developed. At that time, they were located well beyond the city limits, but the city later grew to encompass these institutions. During its first two centuries, Yaroslavl remained a minor fortified city of the Rostov-Suzdal lands.
From the beginning of the thirteenth century, Yaroslavl was ruled by the lordship of Konstantin and became one of his primary residences. Just before his death in 1218, Konstantin broke up his land among his various sons, bequeathing the Yaroslave land to his second son Vsevolod. The son ruled it as the Principality of Yaroslavl. This principality, of which Yaroslavl became the capital, included a number of territories to the north and operated independently until its eventual absorption in 1463 into the Principality of Moscow.
During the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, Yaroslavl was a city largely built from wood, as a result of which it often found itself plagued by disastrous fires, which in some cases almost destroyed the entire city, a good example of which would be that which took place just before the transfer of power in the city to Vsevolod on 1221. Another constant source of danger for the city and for the many Russian princes of the time came from the East and the many foreign invaders, usually from the Mongol Horde. A particularly successful attack took place in 1257, when troops from the Golden Horde under Möngke Khan overran the Principality of Yaroslavl and murdered both the larger population of the area and the prince's close family. On the site of that unfortunate event, on the right bank of the Kotorosl, there is now a memorial church and cross. A mass grave containing at least 300 bodies of victims of a Mongol invasion in the year 1238, was discovered during an excavation in 2005.
In 1293 and 1322 there were further disastrous attacks on Yaroslavl launched by the Golden Horde, and in 1278 and 1364 the Plague struck. On many an occasion Yaroslavl had to be completely rebuilt, both in terms of residential buildings which no longer exist, to those larger more permanent structures which remain to this day, such as the Spaso-Preobrazhensky Monastery and 1314 Monastery of Maria of Tolga, which is located on the left bank of the Volga. In 1463 the Principality of Yaroslavl was finally absorbed into the Grand-duchy of Moscow, with the area it once covered becoming an oblast within the new structure of the Muscovite state. From this point onwards the history of the city and its lands became completely inseparable from that of Moscow and eventually Russia.
16th century and the Time of Troubles
Even in the 16th century, Yaroslavl continued to suffer from large scale fires and the damage they did to the city's developing economy and infrastructure. As a result, the age old tradition of building in wood was abandoned and a new city built of stone began to appear; unfortunately, this meant that very little of the Yaroslavl of the Middle Ages remained unchanged. The most prominent example of this is the Spaso-Preobrazhensky monastery which was destroyed in 1501 and rebuilt in just under a few years. Resultantly the monastery's cathedral was built up in 1506–1516, a building which remains, to this day, the oldest unchanged building in the city. By the middle of the sixteenth century, a number of other building works had been completed in the monastery, also, other than this, for the first time in its history, Yaroslavl gained a stone-built wall with a number of large watchtowers which were intended to be used to spot attackers from miles away. During the reign of Ivan the Terrible, when all the Russian principalities gave up their traditional rights and submitted to the Tsardom of Russia, the two large monasteries of Yaroslavl profited very much from rich gifts from the court of the Tsar, largely because Ivan IV made a number of pilgrimages to Yaroslavl over the course of his life.
New building works were also made affordable by a large upswing in Yaroslavl's economic fortunes which the city experienced in the middle part of the 16th century. The main reason for this largely unexpected improvement in Yaroslavl's fortunes came largely from the city's position on the Volga which allowed trade to be brought from and to Moscow via the river, linking the new Russian capital with the port of Arkhangelsk. Resultantly Yaroslavl became an important place for the conduct of international trade and a number of shipping berths and warehouses grew up around the city for the use of merchants, especially those from England and Germany.
The economic prosperity of Yaroslavl during the late 16th century was put to an end by the unsteady years of troubles which lasted from around 1598 until 1613. Like most Russian cities of the time, Yaroslavl was devastated by famine and became a potential target city for Polish-Lithuanian troops acting in their capacity as 'interventionists' in the troubled Russian state. The Polish-Lithuanian-supported pretender to the Russian throne captured Karachev, Bryansk, and other towns, was reinforced by the Poles, and in the spring of 1608 advanced upon Moscow, routing the army of Tsar Vasily Shuisky at Bolkhov. Promises of the wholesale confiscation of the estates of the boyars drew many common people to his side. The village of Tushino, twelve versts from the capital, was converted into an armed camp where Dmitry gathered his army. Resultantly this pretender won the appreciation of the powers in Yaroslavl and thus their loyalty. However, despite having promised to pay a higher rate of taxes and dues to the Polish occupiers, Yaroslavl was on numerous occasions plundered by the forces of the pretender Dmitry. This led to a number of popular uprisings. Thus in early 1609, a Russian peasant army was formed to free as many of the Volga's cities as possible, including, among others, Vologda and Yaroslavl.
In May 1609, another Polish army under the command of Aleksander Józef Lisowski tried to bring the strategically important city of Yaroslavl under the power of the invaders. However, the majority of the city's citizens had withdrawn into the center of the city and found refuge behind the protective earthen wall, thus denying the Poles entry without a fight. Yet even when Lisowski successfully (through deceit) managed to get behind this wall, he found that the citizens of Yaroslavl had retreated into their ancient wooden Kremlin and the two stone-built monasteries. The ensuing siege of Yaroslavl lasted until May 22, but despite constant attempts to take the city, the Poles had to return to Moscow having not fulfilled their duty to bring Yaroslavl under direct control of their command.
Despite their failure at Yaroslavl, Polish forces remained in control of Moscow, and despite an attempt in 1610 by the Russian peasants' army to unseat the Poles from the Moscow Kremlin, little was accomplished and there seemed no end in sight for the occupation of the Russian tsardom. One year later, however, Kuzma Minin and Prince Dmitry Pozharsky founded yet another peasants' army in Nizhny Novgorod, that on the way to Moscow, found itself stationed in Yaroslavl for many months. In this time from April to June 1612, Yaroslavl became the de facto capital of Russia, since in this place the most important matters of state were settled until the eventual liberation of Moscow came. After its time in Yaroslavl the peasants' army moved on towards Moscow, and with thanks to the rest and help they had received voluntarily from the people of Yaroslavl, the army was able to liberate Moscow and finally put an end to the Polish-Lithuanian 'intervention' in the affairs of the Russian state.
Trading post and government center
With the general economic revival of the Russian state's economy after the end of the Troubles, Yaroslavl continued to be an important trading post and retained its place on the route of numerous traditional trading routes from the West to East and vice versa. By way of the Volga trade was carried out with the lands of the Orient. The northern trade route through the city ran to the port of Arkhangelsk in Russia's far north, whilst other Eastern trade lines ran East over the Urals to Siberia. The town benefited very much from its geographical location over the years and the wealth which business produced for the town helped ensure its prosperous future. In fact, in the 17th century, a number of early industrial concerns were set up in the city, including a number of leather-working shops, in which around 700 people eventually came to work. Other trades for which Yaroslavl became a center over the years were in the production of textiles, cosmetics (fragrances) and silver work.