Koryazhma

Koryazhma's early modern centre was the monastery of Saint Nicholas at the mouth of the Koryazhemka, beside the Vychegda River. Its foundation is dated to 1535, when Longin and Simon established a chapel and a wooden church. The river gave the monastery its name, while the religious community provided the focus for settlement long before the modern industrial town. During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the monastery became an important participant in the area's economic and cultural life. Its buildings gradually acquired a more substantial form: the Annunciation Cathedral was built in 1671, and the stone Church of the Saviour was consecrated in 1746. These successive churches record the development of a northern monastic establishment from a small wooden foundation into a complex with durable masonry buildings on the riverbank.