The five-domed Sophia Cathedral was erected under the personal supervision of Ivan the Terrible and resembles the Assumption Cathedral in Moscow. For the sake of preserving the frescoes of the icon painter Dmitry Plekhanov, the temple is open to visitors only in dry and warm weather.

Nearby is an octagonal belfry with bells of the 17th century. Closer to the river there is a monument to Konstantin Batyushkov, who spent the last years of his life in Vologda: in drafts, the poet often painted a lonely horse without a rider, bowing his head to the water.

  • The mansion behind St. Sophia Cathedral belonged to the Vologda diocese: in 1907, Varlam Shalamov was born into the family of a priest, who lived here for almost 20 years. The Shalamov Memorial House occupied the wing where the writer’s family lived (the other part of the building was given to the regional art gallery). Literary evenings are held on June 18 and January 17.
  • 1147 is the date of foundation of Vologda. From this northern city, the same age as Moscow, Ivan the Terrible was seriously going to rule Russia, and therefore he founded the Kremlin twice as large as the capital.
  • The Vologda Museum-Reserve occupies several buildings, including the Kremlin. The Bishop’s Metochion has a rich collection of icons, which is worth seeing in order to learn how to recognize the northern script. Do not miss such a curiosity as the «Zyryanskaya Trinity» with the oldest known example of ancient Perm writing.

The name «Vologda oil» deserves only a product produced within the region. «Terroir» oil was the first to be made by Nikolai Vereshchagin, the brother of the famous battle painter, who applied the Swiss experience to the local water meadows.

  • The famous okanye found a visible embodiment in 2012. According to the sketches of art school students, six blacksmiths forged a 300-kilogram letter O in two weeks, which tourists use as a photo frame.
  • Right there, on Cathedral Hill, there is a wrought-iron bench “Let’s sit, have a rest”.
    The stone bridge spanning the Zolotukha River is considered the shortest street in the city. The illuminated pedestrian street looks like a piece of Christmas Europe in winter.
  • The Museum of Vologda Lace is located on the Kremlin Square. Much more than traditional snowflakes, birds and horses, propaganda canvases with tractors and Red Army soldiers are striking. But the most impressive thing is the work of craftswomen, in whose hands the bobbins seem to come to life.
  • The carved palisade that appeared in the century before last, depicting the city in a popular song, has been well preserved.
  • In Nizhny Posad, the houses of Sokovikov and Levashov stand out in this respect. And in the Upper, the mansions of Zasetsky and Volkov survived. You can visit the “House with Lilies”, which belonged to the merchant Chernoglazov, opened after restoration — it now houses a flower shop.
  • Kirillo-Belozersky Monastery was founded in 1397, 130 km from Vologda, on the shores of Lake Siverskoye, and Ivan the Terrible became a monk shortly before his death. The main cathedral of the monastery — the Assumption Cathedral — was painted by Lyubim Ageev, who later worked in the Assumption Cathedral in the capital.

Having lived only a year in the monastery founded by Cyril, the monk Ferapont founded his own, 20 km from Kirillova. The main value of the Ferapontov Monastery is the murals of the Cathedral of the Nativity of the Virgin, one of the first stone churches in the North of Rus’, made by Dionysius in just a month in 1502.

  • Not far from the center of Vologda stands the Spaso-Prilutsky Monastery, founded in 1371 by Dmitry Prilutsky, an associate of Sergius of Radonezh.
  • The five-domed Cathedral of the Savior is adjacent to the wooden Church of the Assumption, transferred from the Alexander-Kushtskaya monastery.