Uglich Kremlin

Dmitry, the youngest son of Ivan IV, died in the kremlin yard at Uglich in May 1591, aged eight, from a knife wound to the throat. The official commission concluded he had cut himself during an epileptic seizure while playing; the townspeople believed he had been murdered on Boris Godunov's orders, killed the men they blamed, and were punished for it - the town's bell, rung to raise the crowd, was flogged, had its tongue removed and was exiled to Tobolsk, and it was returned only in 1892. The question was never settled, and after Boris took the throne a series of pretenders claiming to be the surviving Dmitry helped bring on the collapse of the following years. The red Church of St Dmitry on the Blood was built over the spot in 1692, with frescoes showing the killing. Around it stand the fifteenth-century princes' chambers and the Transfiguration cathedral.

The main sights

• The Church on the Blood - built in 1692 over the spot, with frescoes of the death.
• The exiled bell - the town bell punished and sent to Siberia, returned in 1892.
• The princes' chambers - a fifteenth-century civil building, rare for its date.
• The unresolved question - accident or murder, never settled, and the crisis that followed.

When to go

May to September. Two to three hours. Cruise ships stop here and fill the site in bursts.

Before you go

The complex is small and the ticket covers several buildings. Whether Dmitry was killed remains genuinely unknown, whatever confident accounts you hear. Cruise arrivals crowd it. Uglich has limited transport connections.

Nearby

Myshkin is downstream; Rostov Veliky and Yaroslavl are east.

Key facts