Saviour Monastery of Saint Euthymius

The Spaso-Yevfimiev monastery was founded in the 1350s and rebuilt in the seventeenth century as a fortress, with red brick walls of about one and a half kilometres and twelve towers standing above the Kamenka - the most imposing thing in Suzdal, a town otherwise of low wooden houses and small churches. Inside, the Transfiguration cathedral holds frescoes by Gury Nikitin's Kostroma workshop from 1689, and the bell tower has a set of bells rung in short concerts several times a day, which is the reason the courtyard fills on the hour. Catherine II established a prison here in 1766 for religious and political detainees, and it operated in various forms into the twentieth century; the block is open, with an exhibition that sets out plainly who was held and why. The monastery is a museum rather than a working house, part of the UNESCO White Monuments group, and Pozharsky's tomb stands by the cathedral.

What you actually see

• The fortress walls - one and a half kilometres of red brick with twelve towers.
• The 1689 frescoes - Gury Nikitin's workshop painting in the Transfiguration cathedral.
• The bell concerts - short ringings several times a day from the tower.
• The prison block - a detention facility from 1766, open with an honest exhibition.

When to go

May to September. Two to three hours. Check the bell concert times on arrival and plan around them.

Honest expectations

It is a museum complex, not a working monastery, and the ticket covers several separate exhibitions. Suzdal is very busy in summer and on holidays. The prison exhibition is sober material. An hour by bus from Vladimir.

Nearby

Suzdal's kremlin and wooden architecture museum are south; Kideksha is east.