Suzdal

Set beside the Kamenka River, Suzdal was one of the early centres of the northeastern Russian lands. First mentioned in 1024, it became the capital of Rostov-Suzdal under Yuri Dolgoruky in the twelfth century. Although the princely seat later moved to Vladimir, Suzdal retained its cathedral and became the centre of another principality after the Mongol conquest. Its Nativity Cathedral, erected in the 1220s, survived the Mongol sack, though its interior was plundered.

In 1341 Suzdal was joined to Nizhny Novgorod in a single principality. Grand Prince Konstantin moved the capital to Nizhny Novgorod in 1350, and Moscow annexed the principality in 1392. Tatar attackers burned the cathedral in 1445, bringing down its upper part; Grand Prince Vasily III later rebuilt it as part of his restoration of the heritage of the Russian lands under Moscow. As political power moved elsewhere, Suzdal grew in importance as an ecclesiastical centre. Its great Monastery of Saint Euthymius and Convent of the Intercession ranked among the largest religious houses in Russia. Wealthy merchants sponsored a further flowering of church building in the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, funding some thirty churches in the town.