BELARUSIAN SUZDAL

    "Little Vilnius," "Belarusian Suzdal" - this is the name of our ancient city. He had to go through a lot in his lifetime. The seal of continuous wars lies with Mstislavl. Its surroundings were destroyed, devastated, watered with the blood of warriors and dotted with the graves of the dead. There are few places in the world whose inhabitants would defend the walls of their hometown so courageously and selflessly, defending their homeland from enemies. In his almost nine hundred years of history, he has seen and gone through too many troubles. There is even a saying: "And the Mscislauz are not pamirayutz on the Laut pile." The city was burned six times! And with the complete destruction of the city and its inhabitants. It so happened that the Mstislavs, unlike the Smolyan neighbors, did not like, and did not know how to surrender and submit, but the city lay on the way from Lithuania to the Principality of Moscow. Muscovites go to war on the Grand Duchy of Lithuania - pass through Mstislavl.

    They get rebuffed - in response they commit reprisals. During the war of the XVII century, the city was literally cut out several times: an order was given not to take slaves, to destroy everyone. It hurts not to like the conquerors "there was a rebellious freedom-loving character of the townspeople.

    For the first time Mstislavl is mentioned in the collection of the Kyiv Mikhailovsky Monastery, which says: "Summer 6642 (1135) Rostislav Mstislavovich in the morning the great city of Smolensk and the church of St. SP (a) Sa Verkhu Smyadyn and the city of Mstislavl on Verkhya on the same day." The founder of Mstislavl is the Smolensk prince Rostislav Mstislavovich. Since 1180, the center of the specific Mstislavsky principality. The city arose on a castle mountain with a castle in the center, fortified by a moat and ramparts. In the XIV century. Mstislavl in the Principality of Smolensk. In 1359, the Grand Duke of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania Olgerd planted his governor in Mstislavl, and later transferred the city to his son, Semyon Lugvin, the founder of the dynasty of princes Mstislavsky.

    In 1634, the city received the Magdeburg law and coat of arms. Interesting and amazing legends telling about the life and development of ancient Mstislavl.

MAIDEN MOUNTAIN

    Maiden Mountain is today ranked among the monuments of archeology. It is believed to be an early Iron Age settlement: people appeared here 100 years before the Nativity of Christ. There is also a legend associated with this place.

    As in the old city, in the city, in Mstislavl. He lived and was a great, wise prince. That prince Vladimir was called. And he had a lot of zlat - silver. Mushrooms and berries grew in the forests, countless herds grazed in the meadows, obese nives turned yellow in the fields. And then Vladimir Prince decided to become famous for everything, to God's light. He ordered all the local girls to be convened and ordered to fill Mount Maiden, and by morning they would cope with this matter. A clear-star night came, a month-father appeared in the sky. Yes, they are not happy about the beauty of that girl, they have to the work is hard for them. Girls lined up, walking in file, behind black land, fertile. And they carry it to make a wonderful mountain. The girls poured out one time - it turned out to be a small heap. The girls poured out for the second time - a small hillock had already grown. And when they entered the third time, the slide rose even higher. But the back has already become sick. The eyes are clear with sweat. Blurred braids. White handles were smeared, and the ground under his feet was swaying. Shines in the sky - that month-priest. He looks at the red girls. Yes, he cannot help them with anything, seeing all their hard work, only he can shine clear from the sky. The girls spent the night. Everyone wore that land on the aprons and poured the mother in a pea. And the matter was moving slowly. The beauty rose - a slide. And when suddenly the morning came, the dawn spread clear across the sky, it seemed like a light sun, all the poor girls were dying. Their legs are white, their arms are tired, their clear eyes are hidden. And he smiled them with a deathly dream. And the beautiful girls fell asleep. On a high mountain, on a beauty. The sun shines on them from the sky clear, but they cannot open the eye - they sleep the girls-beauties with a mortal dream. Vladimir came out in the morning - the prince sees in the field: an even slide has grown, and the dead girls lie on it quietly, as if everyone was sleeping. And they nicknamed the whole mountain that Maiden. For many years since then, Vladimir the Prince has been sleeping forever. And the local people forgot about him. Only remember all the people Mstislavsky cute girls who built a mountain…

    The place here, apparently, is not easy. At least, the inhabitants of Mstislavl said that often on Maiden Hill you can see healers and psychics who incognito visit the city for only one purpose: to feed on the positive energy emanating from the bowels of the majestic hill. Well, the first inhabitants of Maiden Mountain were engaged in hunting, fishing, animal husbandry and primitive agriculture. However, under the onslaught of tribes that came from the west and south, they moved to where it was safer.

Zamkovaya Gora

    Zamkovaya Gora is significantly larger than Maiden Mountain. Once she was surrounded by deep ditches, and a high shaft stretched behind them. Behind the fortifications on the upper platform of the mountain was a detinets of medieval Mstislavl. From the south, the so-called Okolny city adjoined it, also surrounded by ramparts and a moat. During excavations of ancient Mstislavl (L. Alekseev), the remains of fortifications, choruses with tiled stoves, etc. were discovered. Below the Detinets (Castle), Mstislavl's posad was found with the remains of wooden buildings, streets, paved logs, numerous household items of the XII-XIII centuries.

    Zamkovaya Gora is a detinets of ancient Mstislavl. In the XII-XIV centuries. there was a flat area on which the original city center was located. The site of the settlement with a height of more than 20 m, except for the shafts around the perimeter, was strengthened by an annular shaft. There was a castle-fortress, which gave the name to the mountain - Castle. On the rampart stood townships, wooden towers, an entrance brama. The entrance to the castle passed through a wooden drawbridge thrown over the moat. In the center was an octagonal donjon tower, built at the end of the 15th - 16th centuries. In the castle were the prince and the princely squad. Along the cramped circle stood the houses of the inhabitants, a wooden church was built on the south side, and a princely house stood in the center.

    During the war of the Commonwealth with the Principality of Moscow (1654-1667), Mstislavl was at the forefront of hostilities. The capture of the city as a border fortress was considered one of the primary tasks in the offensive actions of the Russian troops. On July 18, 1654, Russian troops under the command of Prince A. Trubetsky, Pozharsky and Dolgorukov approached Mstislavl, but met stubborn resistance from the defenders. For four days the besieged city held out, making desperate sorties towards the enemy... The Russian army burned down the city, the castle, cut out almost the entire population. This bloody event went down in history as the "Trubetskoy Massacre."

TRINITY MOUNTAIN

    In the highest place in the city, the remains of the former Trinity Church remain. But few people know that to the northwest of Castle Mountain, separated from it by a deep moat, long before its construction by Prince Ivan Yuryevich of Mstislavsky in 1463, a church was built in the princely court in honor of the Holy Trinity. In the Princely Castle and Trinity Church were destroyed during one of the many wars. But the mountain has since become known as Holy Trinity.

    There is another legend. They say that one of the Mstislav princes built three castles on this mountain for his three children and bequeathed them to live in peace and harmony. And after his death, friendship between the heirs did not work, and as a result of civil strife, the castles were destroyed. And the fact that they were is evidenced by the name of the place where they stood - Trinity Mountain.

ALEXANDER NEVSKY CHURCH

    It was after the Bernardinsky stone church burned down on June 4, 1858 in Mstislavl that they decided to build the Alexander Nevskaya Church in its place on the corner of Kievskaya and Smolenskaya streets. According to legend, one of the oldest churches stood at this place - Afanasyevskaya. But at the insistence of the Jesuits, this place was taken away from the Orthodox, the church was demolished in the cemetery, and in its place in 1727 the Bernardine Church was built by the Vitebsk coronet Ivan Gurko. Afanasyevskaya church was built first on Castle Hill, and then on the corner of Afanasyevskaya and Krasnaya streets. After the Polish uprising of 1831, the Bernardine Church was closed and transferred first to the military department, and in 1857 to the parishioners of the Afanasyev Church. And only on June 29, 1870, in honor of the 650th anniversary of the birth of the Blessed Prince Alexander Nevsky, a church was opened. Moreover, the altar part is turned not to the east, as is customary for Orthodox churches, but to the southwest. At the entrance to the churchyard on the left side there was a brick chapel built in 1893 (not preserved), and in 1895 a gatehouse appeared on the right side of the entrance, which still stands today. The Orthodox Church of Alexander Nevsky was built in the pseudo-Byzantine style characteristic of those days.