History of the city of Ivanovo: the year of foundation, sights, industry

The future city of Ivanovo appeared as a small peasant village near the Orthodox monastery in the 17th century. Gradually, this village grew thanks to the development of local textile production. Since the XIX century, it is a major industrial center and an important economic hub of the country.

First mentions

The documented history of the city of Ivanovo began in 1609, when this settlement was first mentioned in the chronicle, written in the Trinity-Sergius Lavra. According to this source, a small place was founded by runaway peasants who left the patrimonial monastic villages. In order not to confuse this with other settlements with similar names, Ivanovo was sometimes called Ivanovo-Kokhomsky (near was the fortress of Kokhma).

The first mention of the village is associated with the Time of Troubles, when Russia suffered from civil war and Polish intervention. Foreign invaders reached even Ivanovo. Russia was in a terrible plundered state, there was no strong army in the country that could smash and drive out the invaders. In the years 1608-1609. The village was used as a stronghold for the army of Poles, Lithuanians and Cossacks from the supporters of False Dmitry II. Already in the XX century, archaeologists discovered in the city's outfit the uniforms of that time, made according to the West European model. In 1609 (the year of foundation of Ivanovo) the village was tiny and for a while remained inconspicuous. But further economic growth made it an important center of textile production.

Boyarsky patrimony

Even before the beginning of the Troubles, the places around Kokhma belonged to the influential princes Skopin-Shuisky. In the 16th century the Pokrovsky Monastery was founded here. It is believed that the famous military leader Mikhail Vasilyevich Skopin-Shuisky spent his childhood in this region. The history of the city of Ivanovo is a typical example of a peasant village on the periphery of the Russian state. Local residents were engaged in the manufacture and dyeing of linen fabric, from which the canvases were made. Agriculture here was poorly developed because of low-fertility soils.

Under Tsar Mikhail Fedorovich, a census was conducted, information about which was preserved in the sources. Thanks to such documents today the history of Ivanovo is reproduced. In the first half of the XVII century there were more than a hundred yards, which is a considerable figure for such a deaf place.

Abode of Old Believers

The main waterway of Ivanovo is the navigable river Uvod. Thanks to it, the residents of the town were able to establish strong economic ties with neighboring regions. As mentioned above, the soil in these places did not allow growing bread, but it was an excellent environment for harvesting a large crop of flax.

In 1638, after the genus Skopiny-Shuisky died, the village passed to the princes of Cherkassy. In another 30 years, the population of Ivanovo was already 800 people, not counting the administration and the clergy. New temples continued to appear. It was their number that was the main indicator of the growth and enrichment of any Russian village of that time. When the church split in the country , connected with the reforms of Patriarch Nikon, the place was overwhelmed by the Old Believers. The history of the city of Ivanovo was closely connected with the movement of the priests. These people fled to the outskirts of the country far away from the central government that repressed heretics.

The capital of textile production

The development of weaving led to the emergence of canvases in the village. With the help of this method, patterns and color patterns were applied to future clothing. The city of Ivanovo as the textile capital of Russia took place already in the XVII century. Local goods were sold at fairs in various regions of the country. These fabrics enjoyed considerable demand among the general population.

Gradually, profits more and more settled in Ivanovo, making it richer and more. The local masters traded with Astrakhan, and through it with the eastern countries - Persia, the Caucasus, etc. These economic relations influenced the very art of heel. Ivanovo goods began to bear the imprint of oriental culture.

At the beginning of the XVIII century, Tsar Peter I took up the reorganization of the textile industry. In his time the village of Ivanovo received its own customs house. Its employees collected trade duties that went to the treasury. At the same time, another wave of workers poured in, new public places began to appear, for example, taverns. Like all other Russian settlements of that time, the village suffered from frequent fires. For example, in 1723, fire absorbed more than 200 yards, leaving many residents homeless and roof over their heads.

Industrial Revolution

Oddly enough, the economic significance of Ivanovo increased due to the Patriotic War of 1812. When the army of Napoleon captured Moscow and built a huge fire there, Moscow's textile enterprises burned in flames. After that, Ivanovo industrialists for a long time did not meet the competition in the domestic and foreign markets. They confidently occupied economic niches, which they no longer gave to anyone.

If in 1810 the sale of Ivanovo fabrics brought 1 million rubles, then 7 years later, this figure increased by 7 times. There were local factory dynasties - Kuvaevs, Polushiny, Garelins, etc. They invested money not only in their own production, but also in urban infrastructure. Local factories began to come not only from neighboring cities and Moscow, but even from foreign countries.

Although belatedly, but in the nineteenth century, Ivanovo began its Industrial Revolution. Owners of enterprises gradually abandoned manufactories with manual labor and opened machine manufactures. New enterprises allowed to increase the turnover of products and profits from trade. New plants began to appear that were not directly related to textiles, but performed auxiliary functions. They were chemical, metalworking, mechanical and paper mills. Even before the abolition of serfdom, many Ivanovo peasants, due to their weaving, were redeemed to freedom and even became merchants. To work in new enterprises, the poor and the gollyba from neighboring cities were settled. These people settled in the villages, the number of which has steadily increased.

In the status of the city

In 1872, Tsar Alexander II signed a decree on the establishment of the city of Ivanovo-Voznesensk. By this act he formally fixed the accomplished fact. The village has long grown, and its economic potential was too great for a small inconspicuous place in the Vladimir province. The struggle for the creation of the city was conducted by local authorities for several decades.

As far back as 1853 several settlements that appeared around the village were merged into the Ascension Posad. Its population was 3,500 artisans and workers. There were twice as many residents in the village, but economically it was more backward. The Posad's Duma began to sit in the village, where influential factory owners became chairpersons.

It was the private initiative of the industrialists that gave new impetus to the development of Ivanovo. Russia in the 1860s experienced several radical reforms. The economy has risen to modern capitalist lines. Private hospitals sponsored a hospital for workers, a real school for their children, and a public library. Today these buildings are monuments of Ivanovo.

Because of the Civil War in America, Russia almost ceased to bring cotton there. This somewhat reduced the topic of economic growth in Ivanovo. However, the textile capital of Russia began to grow at the expense of the abolition of serfdom and the outflow of peasants to the factories. It was the population growth and the increase in the number of enterprises that forced the central government to pay attention to the village and give it the status of a city.

Proletarian riots

In the rapidly growing Ivanovo-Voznesensk, new workers arrived. Because of the large number of factories and a special place in the country's economy, the city even began to be called "Russian Manchester". At the same time, an increase in the working masses led to an increase in social tension. That is why during the revolutions of the early twentieth century, all the districts of Ivanovo were shaken by strikes, strikes and other kinds of proletarian protest against the authorities.

The city became a place of attraction for supporters of radical political ideas. In 1892 the first circle of Marxists appeared here, and six years later a committee of the Russian Social-Democratic Labor Party arose. The first Russian revolution in 1905 for Ivanovo was marked by a mass strike. It lasted 72 days. According to various estimates, 30,000 dissatisfied workers took part in the protest. Their requirements were standard for that time - to agree on a minimum wage threshold, to introduce an eight-hour working day, and so on.

The manufacturers refused to make concessions to the protesters. Then the protesters held their own elections and elected 151 representatives. They created the Ivanovo-Voznesensky City Council of Workers' Deputies. It was the first such organization in the history of the country. Under the Soviet regime, the Ivanovo events of 1905 were given special attention. The memorial ensemble "Red Talca" was created in the city. It includes numerous monuments of Ivanovo, dedicated to the history of the revolutionary movement. In 1905, a young Bolshevik Mikhail Frunze was in the town on party work. Later, he will become one of the most outstanding commanders and leaders of the Soviet Union. His career as a revolutionary began in Ivanovo.

Establishing the power of the Bolsheviks

After the abdication of Nicholas II in Ivanovo, a dual power was established, which was characteristic of most of the country. On the one hand was the Soviet of Workers' Deputies, and on the other hand representatives of the Provisional Government. First, the influence of the Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks was great in the city. When the summer elections took place in the local Council, most places in it were occupied by the Bolsheviks. To the news of the October coup in Petrograd, they were ready and immediately set up a revolutionary headquarters. The civil war almost did not affect these places. Power to the Bolsheviks passed without any bloodshed, and the whites did not reach the city.

In 1918 Ivanovo-Voznesensk province was created. It became the center of the textile industry of Soviet Russia. The Bolsheviks created a new subject of the federation, proceeding from its economic independence and isolation from neighboring provinces. The new status immediately affected the life of the city. In it pedagogical and polytechnical institutes were founded. New schools, medical institutions, museums and libraries began to appear. In the 20-ies. Opened its own water supply, and after it public transport in the form of buses.

New textile factories attracted workers from neighboring regions to the city. Among them there were many women who were seamstresses, etc. Therefore, in Soviet times, Ivanovo received the popular name - "city of brides". Local authorities quickly got rid of all that could remind the tsarist era. Therefore, in 1932 Ivanovo-Voznesensk was finally renamed into Ivanovo. The former toponym had an imprint of the former Orthodox religiosity and irritated the Bolsheviks.

The Soviet Regional Center

During the first five-year plans, Ivanovo also received the status of the "third proletarian capital" following Moscow and Leningrad. It was connected with a large number of factories and enterprises that opened up. At that time, the Soviet leadership planned to move the administrative center of the RSFSR to some other city, while leaving the capital of the USSR in Moscow. Among the "contenders" for this title was Ivanovo, although this project was never implemented.

Nevertheless, it was in the 20-30-ies. The city experienced its biggest rise. Ivanovo significantly rebuilt. Soviet architects viewed it as a testing ground for their own experiments. Thanks to this, many monuments of early socialist constructivism are in the regional center today. Other notable features of the city were the largest circus in the country and a unique school for children from foreign communist families (Interdom).

Bolshevik perestroika Ivanovo did not spare many temples and churches built in the tsarist era. For example, the Pokrovsky Monastery was destroyed, around which a settlement was formed that later became an oblast center. His building was demolished, and in its place built a theater of drama, opened in 1939.

During the Great Patriotic War, Ivanovo was a typical rear city. Here, a lot of hospitals for the Red Army and evacuated civilians were opened. Often they occupied the premises of schools and other public buildings. In 1942, the base for the French aviation regiment Normandie-Niemen was established at the Ivanovo airfield. Foreign pilots fought on the side of the Soviet Union against the Axis countries. In Ivanovo they lived in separate hostels.

Modernity

After the end of the Great Patriotic War in Ivanovo began to open not only the usual textile enterprises, but also machine-building plants. The emergence of new factories led to a rapid expansion of urban housing stock in the 1980s. Most of these enterprises work today.

The modern city has absorbed the features of all previous eras. Until now, among the townspeople there is a discussion whether it is necessary to return Ivanovo its historic name Ivanovo-Voznesensk. This initiative comes from activists and figures of the Russian Orthodox Church. Despite this, the modern inhabitants of Ivanovo believe that the current name suits the city much more than the old one.

Symbols of the city

In 1970 the Ivanovo coat of arms was adopted. His peculiarity was that he was not overflowing with typical Soviet drawings - a sickle, a hammer, a star, etc. Instead of them they depicted the symbol of the first Russian revolution - a torch, and also a weaving shuttle.

After that the Ivanovo coat of arms changed only once. In 1996, the image of a young woman in a red sarafan and kokoshnik was adopted. In her hands is a spinning wheel - a symbol of numerous textile enterprises. The female image on the coat of arms is another confirmation that the status of "city of brides" is given to him for a reason. The city is famous for women-masters of weaving. The flag of Ivanovo, adopted in 2003, duplicates this concept.