Kimry

Kimry is a midsize town (about 50.000 citizens) on South of Tver Region. Town stay on Volga. Volga is a great Russian river, inhabitants of Moscow and Podmoskovye are very lucky because they can get here for several hours maximum. Of course in our neighborhood Volga isn’t look as big river, but it give reason for thoughts about how great and power river is forming from little brook.

Besides Volga there is a splendid museum and many still survived merchant’s houses.

As many other towns in Tver Region you can see signs of neglect in Kimry. Ruins of shopping arcade (Gostiniy dvor) in the center of the town.

It was build by the same architect which designed Moscow GUM. They have same father but different fates. Gostiniy Dvor and shopping arcade tell us that town was rich in the past.

A sign of times of Soviet Union.

Modern people settled here a long time ago. During upper paleolithic times.

We can feel something noble in this desolation.

From Wikipedia:

Due its unique look and beauty of outskirts town Kimry often became background for movies.

There is a quite big theatre for such small town. The theatre was opened in Kimry on May 1942 when WWII was in most hight point, even before the Battle for Stalingrad.

And there is Volga, the goal of our trip. River Kimrchanka fall into Volga here. Uglich reservoir starts here.

Savelovskiy district of Kimry is after the river. There is a terminal station of electric trains that going from Savelovsky railway station of Moscow.

Some views look like Istanbul.

Kimry famous for it pre-revolutionary houses in style of Northern Modern. Descendants of merchants still live in this houses. Revolution, dispossession of kulaks and other troubles went around them. This is a house of merchant Luzhin, the symbol of Russian wooden modernist style. However descendants not care about savings of they heritage. After some years nothing will stay from this beauty.

Pseudo Russian and Corinth orders stay close each other.

A Bulgarian house, builders from Bulgaria built it in 1980s. This house still considered as most prestigious in Kimry. As I could notice it the newest multi floor building in the town. There is even two such houses in Kimry.

The main temple of the town.

A church’s yard.

Yet another merchant’s modern building.

And now is New Russian eclectic (1994). It is astonishing as precise architecture represents moods of people, how they look themselves.

The end of the day we spent on a town’s beach. Volga is deep enough in this places, so river motor vessels can pass.

Town museum

To be honest we didn’t think that town has such a good museum. I read that there is a museum of shoe making, remember it, but couldn’t find a details in the Net. It turn out that it possible to know about Kimry show-making in the town museum.

Kimry was a shoe capital of Russia before revolution. And it had such right. For example there is wader of 18th century. This water moccasins was dressed just other shoes. A legend exist that an owner of this boots was Peter the Great of Russia. It’s not true, he had a small foot despite his 2 meters height. But it true that Peter the Great was in Kimry.

Custodians say that all shoes in the museum is original except this boots. It is a replica of boot that exists during the Napoleon invasion of 1812. These shoes was made for filming of “War in Peace” (1961).

Children boots.

Usually shoes was custom-built. This is a scaled model of boots. A shoemaker showed a concept to a customer and after last accept it sew a real pair.

It interesting, that Kimry serfs decided to buy themselves from serfdom in 1843. They went into a bank and took 430 thousands of rubles in a loan for 20 years at 6% rate. I think that this sum is comparable with several millions of today dollars.

A census sheet from serfdom epoch.

An account book from begin of last century.

A folded boots.

Inhabitants of Kimry never were poor until revolution. It was a rich merchant village, with gas lighting, good roads and rich houses. Houses was designed by Moscow architects.

Gaiters.

A pre revolution keyboard. Take notice numbers 0, 1, 3 are absent, letters O, I, 3 replace them.

A sign and a chain of town’s judge.

Special interest for those who loves history of things and design will reconstructions of interiors of different times. This is a interior of merchant house and things from those epoch.