The Ural’s big ring

The Ural’s big ring follows a route “Yekaterinburg-Nevyavnsk-Nizhni Tagil – Kachkanar – Europe-Asia border – Chusovoy – Solikamsk – Cherdyn – Nyrob – Usolje - Perm”. The travelers can see unique monuments with their own eyes.

A leaning tower of Nevyansk city

This is a unique monument of industrial architecture with no equivalents in the history of native culture. It was erected in the first half of the 18^th century in Nevyansk city – the capital of the Demidovs’ mountain princedom. People have been arriving to the city to touch the mystery since ancient times.

The tower has been attracting travelers and scientists from various countries. Nowadays, after many years of oblivion, the tower rises in its modest splendor and tourists visit it every year. Another pearl and honour of Nevyansk city stands nearby – a newly rebuilt Spaso-Preobrazhensky cathedral (devoted to our Saviour’s Transfiguration).

Nizhni Tagil – a reference edge of the State

Nizhni Tagil stays among historical cities of Russia. It is one of the most ancient mining centres, a city with interesting history, a famous “tank-city” of the Great Patriotic War, the place of armament exhibitions and fairs. Nizhni Tagil is a combination of antique and modernity.

You can visit a panoramic tour and then visit a Lisya (Fox’s) Mountain which provides a wonderful view over the city and its suburbs. Moreover, you can visit an observation station of the Main full gallop of Vysokogorsky mine, where lodestone has been excavated since 1721.

You can get familiar with the Demidovs’ plants work and the mining history in a historical and regional museum. There are industrial assets of the 18^th-20^th centuries near Nizhni Tagil metallurgical plant and museum. An armored vehicles museum represents all the land battleships--types produced in the Ural; you can sit in a modern land battleship T-90.

On the Europe-Asia border

The Europe-Asia border crossing is a remarkable moment. There stands a huge obelisk in the place.

Then the trip goes across the Perm region. A next excursion place is the Chusova River ethnographical museum of history. The open-air museum represents the showpieces of Russian antiquity. The museum is organized in uncommon for museum way. Here you can touch samovars, spinning wheels, oil-lamps.

You have to visit an Ermak’s campaigns museum, the only museum in the world of a real Russian bogatyr. This is a real art generation: an ancient chapel, a marvelous polyptych of Pavel Shardakov, and great accompanying sound – a thrilling story about the Ermak times. It is the place where Ermak started his legendary campaign in 1851.

Russia’s salt

Then tourists get familiar with Russia’s “salt-cellar” – Solikamsk city. The city’s history is the Russia’s history of its becoming a powerful and great empire. The city was known as “Russia’s salty capital” in the 17^th-18^th centuries; 70 per cent of salt was extracted in the city. That’s why the first excursion is to an active potash manure producing mine, “to the bottom of the Perm Sea”.

Solikamsk city strikes everyone who visits it for the first time. A city’s architectural ensemble is unique. The main feature of the ensemble is a Waywode’s House (1688) – a “residence” of Solikamsk Voivodeship’s tsarist governor. The ensemble also consists of St. Trinity cathedral erected in 1697 on the funds donated by a Tsaritza Sofia Alexeevna Romanova. It is the most monumental construction in the city. Its pyramidical and stepping construction with beautiful figured brick decoration dominates in the city’s building. It is also notable for the icon of St. Nicholas Thaumaturgus, presented by Ivan the Terrible, which was located in the cathedral. A 60-meter spear of a Collegiate bell tower erected on a steep hill in 1713 rises nearby. Theopany church is probably one of the most interesting churches in the city. There is a carved wooden iconostasis with most rare icons collection inside.

Perm is Great Cherdyn

A visit to the museum of Russian Ural’s capital, the most ancient city Cherdyn, is another excursion point. A panoramic tour through the Cherdyn region, a regional museum and the history of Belief museum will help clue the mystery of that time.

Cherdyn city is the most ancient city in the Kama River region. It is just rich in monuments of history and nature; it is a city of special civilization.

Cherdyn was an administrative, military, craft, trade and religious centre of Great Perm in the 15^th-17^th centuries. That time there even existed such a notion “Great Perm Cherdyn” that was used in official documents.

Cherdyn played a great role in Siberia reclamation. Craftsmen, merchants and churchmen set off from the city to the towns of Verkhoturje and Pelym.

Cherdyn starts with a St. Trinity hill, where an earthwork – the main attraction of the city – has remained. It opens a historical view over the city’s centre, the Kolva River and behind the river spaces.

The bell tower of the Resurrection cathedral (the 18^th – 19^th centuries) is magnificent. The city’s architectural image combines early traditions of the Russian North and Ural architectural school of the 2^nd half of the 18^th century, what has been appeared in cathedrals, churches, public houses and merchant shops.

Cherdyn citizens have kept a few worlds known relics: Perm animal style, Perm wooden gods and exceptional icons.

Cherdyn suburbs are also rich in attractions. You will follow an ancient Pechira tract, along which there are settlements established long before the Cherdyn region join Russia. There have remained several monuments – the bystanders of the most important historical events. These are the Annunciation cathedral (1785) in a village Pokcha, St. Trinity church (1779) in a village Vilgort, the Presentation of the Holy Virgin into the Temple church (1915) in a village Kamgort. In actual fact you will visit an exceptional archeological monument - Iskorskoe gorodische (an ancient fortress) in a village Iskor and will also visit a famous “shallow street” and “wide street”.

The place of tsar’s imprisonment

Then here goes a village Nyrob. It is acknowledged the most beautiful architectural ensemble of the Cherdyn region. St. Nicholas church was erected in 1705 and now it is among the monuments under UNESCO protection.

Nyrob is notorious as a place of imprisonment and martyr’s death of M.N. Romanov – the uncle of the first Romanov tsar. M.N. Romanov’s hole is still a sanctuary of the village. There was memorial service near the M.N. Romanov’s hole in the July of 1998.

Another holy place is Nikolsky spring. Its water taste amazing. The locals say that there was the icon of Nicholas Thaumaturgus buried in the spring.

Spiritual impulse of ancient Russia.

The last excursion point is an ancient town – Usolje. It is a live part of the past that reminds of itself by churches’ cupolas, stony merchant mansions and unusual names. Sometimes it seems that the doors of an ancient mansion will open and the master of the region Grigory Stroganov will appear.

The town’s history began in 1606, when Nikita Stroganov established new salt craft here known later as Novoe Usolje. Salt brines were high concentrated. The salt was taken to Nizhni Novgorod, Rybinsk, Yaroslavl and then to barns from where it was sold abroad and taken to across the country. 

The 20^th century was full of challenges for Usolje town. The town hasn’t been preserved in origin: it was moved to a mountain Kamen (Stone) in 1954 as there was established Kama hydro-power electro station. Just the building of an old centre, which was in highland, remained free of water. They keep the memory of “golden century” of a used-to-be capital Russia’s salt making capital. Having visited the Usol region, where past talks with present, you will feel a strong spiritual impulse of ancient Russia.

Visiting the Urals’ cities gives an unusual feeling of belonging to the events happened here. At first sight, similar and at the same time so different they have common fate. Cherdyn, Solikamsk, Usolje – they are not only the past but also the great present. Simple and festive skylines of the cathedrals, cozy, quiet streets, and majestic whisper of centuries-old oaks immerse to the atmosphere of peace, harmony and recreation.