The town away from Belgorod (“white area”) near Russia’s west edging gets their label throughout the nearby light chalk hills, part of a unique geological element away from Campanian decades structures when you look at the southwestern Russia. The city (most recent inhabitants 394,000) is on Lake Vezyolka close their confluence towards the Seversky Donets, and therefore moves south towards the Ukraine, earlier in the day Donetsk, prior to reentering Russia near Rostov-on-Wear. The brand new edging is only 40 kilometer into southwestern, for this reason to make Belgorod new closest significant Russian city to help you Ukraine.
In early September 1911, Russian chemist and you may photography Sergey Prokudin-Gorsky decided to go to Belgorod so you’re able to document the latest event of canonization from a community bishop. My very own check out inside suggests a great Belgorod far altered from the 20th-century cataclysms.
Protector of borderlands
Belgorod is generally considered to have been created for the 1593 (or 1596) inside the leadership regarding Tsar Feodor (1557-98), man away from Ivan the new Terrible and you may past ruler in the Riurikovich dynasty. Into pointers away from Boris Godunov, Feodor put up a series of strengthened settlements meant to cover Muscovy’s southern borderlands. The Belgorod fortress became new anchor as to what try understood in the fresh 17th 100 years as the Belgorod Line, an essential bulwark facing incursions by Crimean Tatars.
When you look at the 1612, the fresh fortress centered of the Tsar Feodor try captured and you may burnt by Polish pushes during a dynastic drama known as the Duration of Difficulties. Remodeled during the a somewhat different location, the brand new fortress is actually appear to assaulted in the 1st 50 % of new 17th millennium.
Towards intake away from Ukrainian lands (the latest Hetmanate) for the Muscovite state in the second an element of the 17th millennium, the fresh new armed forces need for Belgorod age a modest provincial administrative and you will exchange cardiovascular system.
Town of churches
Belgorod’s basic enduring chapel is the Cathedral of Dormition and you will St. Nicholas at Mary-Martha Convent. Began about 1690s and completed in 1703, the cathedral’s design benefited within the 1701 regarding contribution of one hundred rubles by Tsar Peter We (the great).
Really busted into the Soviet several months, this new cathedral are returned to the fresh new Orthodox Church on the 90s now enjoys a special symbol screen because of the singer Alexander Rabotnov. The fresh convent’s other big chapel, produced in 1791, was seriously interested in the fresh new Intercession of your Virgin.
And additionally relationship on 18th century is the Cathedral of the Smolensk Icon of your Virgin, consecrated in two levels with altars toward higher and lower profile. A couple efforts have been made so you’re able to demolish new strong construction (inside 1958 and you will 1974), however the explosives only broken neighboring property. Brand new cathedral is actually reconsecrated in 1996.
The key shrine out of Belgorod is the neoclassical Cathedral of your own Transfiguration, consecrated in 1803. Closed-in the new later 1930s, the latest cathedral was reopened into the conflict and you may once again closed-in 1962 as part of the Khrushchev era anti-spiritual campaign. This new cathedral try returned into the 1992 and you will supported as center of your own Diocese out of Belgorod and Stary Oskol.
Cathedral of one’s Transfiguration, baldacchino with relics away from St. Ioasaph, Bishop out of Belgorod ( relics transported of art gallery inside the 1991).
Railway middle
A major stimulus to Belgorod’s advancement occurred in 1869 for the starting regarding a railroad channel within the Kursk-Kharkov line. Even more traces to the south switched Belgorod to your a primary train junction.
Having increased transportation, this new region’s plentiful chalk bedrooms became an essential commercial house (far to the detriment of its archeological well worth). Having an extended industrial feet, Belgorod’s population doubled to a few 28,000 by the 1913.
The new railway circle and additionally allowed Prokudin-Gorsky easy accessibility throughout the from inside the a busy take a trip period regarding the slide off 1911. For the Sept. cuatro (in the “old-style,” otherwise Julian schedule, thirteen days about the new Gregorian diary utilized somewhere else inside the Europe) Belgorod hosted an event that drawn common focus – the fresh new 
solemn affair of your has just canonized Ioasaph out of Belgorod.
