Ipatiev Monastery

The Ipatiev monastery stands where the Kostroma joins the Volga and is bound up with the Romanovs from the start: in March 1613, after the years of dynastic collapse, a delegation from Moscow came here to offer the throne to sixteen-year-old Mikhail Romanov, who was living in the monastery with his mother, and after some persuasion he accepted - which is where the dynasty begins. The Godunovs had endowed the monastery heavily before that, and the walls, the Trinity cathedral of the 1650s with frescoes by Gury Nikitin, and the chambers date from that patronage and the Romanov favour that followed. The Hypatian Codex, one of the most important sources for early Rus history and the manuscript preserving much of the Primary Chronicle and the Kyivan and Galician chronicles, was found here, which is why it carries the monastery's name. A wooden church from the region stands in an open-air section outside the walls.

History

Tradition holds that the Tatar Murza Chet, baptised Zachary, founded the monastery around 1330 in thanks for a cure, though some historians date a first foundation to 1275. In 1435 Vasily II made peace with his cousin Vasily Kosoy here, Nikolay Karamzin later found the Hypatian Codex in the cloister, and on 14 March 1613 the Zemsky Sobor announced that Mikhail Romanov, then staying here, would be tsar (Wikipedia, Ipatiev Monastery).

Highlights

• The 1613 offer - the monastery where Mikhail Romanov accepted the throne.
• The Trinity cathedral - 1650s, with Gury Nikitin's frescoes.
• The Hypatian Codex - the chronicle manuscript found here and named for the monastery.
• The wooden church - a regional building moved to an open-air section outside the walls.

When to go

May to September. Two to three hours. Kostroma is a stop on Volga cruises and gets busy when ships dock.

Before you go

An active monastery sharing the site with a museum, and the division of access between them has been disputed. Dress rules apply. Photography restricted inside. Cruise-ship arrivals fill it in bursts.

Nearby

Kostroma's trade rows and centre are east; the Volga runs past the walls.

Key facts