At nearly 4,000 kilometres the Volga is the longest river in Europe. From the canal that links it to the river station in Moscow it flows north for 200 km to the town of Rybinsk, where it changes direction and begins its long southward journey to the Caspian Sea. Seventy-five km downstream from Rybinsk it flows through Yaroslavl, a medium sized city with a population of 600,000 and a thriving industrial infrastructure. Until we docked there on our trip from Moscow to St. Petersburg I had never heard of Yaroslavl yet it was once the second largest city in Russia, a leader among the cities of the “Golden Ring,” and for a while the country’s de facto capital.
Strategically located at the confluence of the Volga and Kotorsl Rivers it has been an important trading centre and port ever since Prince Yaroslavl the Wise settled there in 1010. According to legend the prince converted the local heathens by killing their sacred bear with his battleaxe. He established the Christian church in his new city and went on to build a wooden fort on the spit between the two rivers. His fort grew into one of the busiest ports on the Volga, attracting merchants from throughout Russia who settled there and grew rich on trade with the Middle East and Europe. Although it was sacked and burned to the ground by the Mongols in 1238 and languished under Tatar rule for the next hundred years, the city bounced back during the 16 th and 17 th centuries to become one of the largest and wealthiest cities in all of Russia. Many of the merchants who prospered there used their wealth to build churches and monasteries, competing with one another and with Moscow to create ever bigger and more elaborate structures. In 1750 they also built Russia’s first theatre on the banks of the Volga.
In honour of its founding prince the modern city of Yaroslavl has adopted the image of a bear wielding a battleaxe as its coat-of-arms, and has carefully preserved the legacy of its 17 th century golden age of prosperity. The old buildings are as bright and vibrant, both inside and out, as the day they were built and the city’s theatre continues to showcase the best of Russia’s performing arts.
Standing on the top deck of the Kirov as we come in to dock I can see many more onion-shaped domes, gilded church spires, and patches of green parkland than factories or high-rises. Yaroslavl may no longer rank among Russia’s largest cities but it is certainly one of the most beautiful.
We spent most of a day in Yaroslavl, strolling through the picturesque green belt beside the Volga, visiting several 17 th century cathedrals and exploring the fortified battlements of the 13 th century Monastery of the Transfiguration. I was particularly taken with the old red brick Church of the Epiphany. Built by a wealthy 17 th century merchant its five green domes contrast with a rich exterior trim of elaborately glazed tiles. But for sheer elegance the Church of Elijah the Prophet, built by Siberian fur traders Anikey and Nifantey Skripin in 1650, is in a class of its own. Its vaulted interior sparkles with bright gold-framed frescoes, a veritable museum of Old Russian Paintings.
After our day in Yaroslavl we returned to the Kirov and continued our journey north. Here the Volga is almost a kilometre wide and the rolling hills on either side are densely forested. On our way back to Rybinsk we pass a few small villages where the log houses remind me of northern B.C. This 75 km stretch of river is also a reminder of how the Volga must have looked back in the 17 th century, before being altered by the locks and dams of Stalin’s “Great Volga Plan.” At Rybinsk the Kirov slips into the first of two locks that will lift us from the river into the reservoir behind Rybinsk’s massive hydroelectric dam.
Before the dam was completed in 1941 Rybinsk was the place where cargo destined for St. Petersburg had to be transferred to small, shallow draft boats for the perilous journey through the old Marinsk System of primitive locks that then linked the Volga to its northern tributaries. During periods of low water the boats had to be hauled by teams of “burlaks,” itinerant labourers who worked for less than draft animals. In those days a trip from the bend in the Volga to St. Petersburg could take several months. Today the burlaks and their work songs are long gone, the “yo, heave ho!” of the Volga Boatmen replaced by the throb of diesel engines. A medium sized freighter can now make the journey in less than three days.
Above the dam the shallow Rybinsk reservoir sprawls across more than 5,000 square kilometres of almost flat land. The old Marinsk System of locks and canals lies beneath its surface, along with the remains of 700 villages. When Stalin devised his plan to dam the Volga in 1932 the project was couched in secrecy. In order to minimize public dissent not even families living in the flood zone were warned until the water had actually started to rise.
As the Kirov was pulling out of the upper lock I brought a beer up to the observation deck, waved good by to a statue of Mother Volga on the shore of the reservoir, and settled down to watch the sights go by. We cruise north past the crumbling remains of a large stone building and a few kilometres farther on the bell tower of a church — now just curiosities jutting out of the water but once part of some long forgotten town.
From the comfort of our tourist ship it would be easy to forget the toil and human sacrifice that went in to the making of the Volga-Baltic-Waterway. From the brainchild of Peter the Great in 1709, to its completion under the iron-fisted control of Joseph Stalin in 1941 a waterway from the Caspian Sea to the Gulf of Finland has captured the imagination of generations of Russians. It’s an engineering feat of which they can be justly proud but it has forever changed their traditional, romantic image of Mother Volga.
