Город на семи холмах : Грандъ Сова

The town on seven hills

Along the seven Ples hills above the main street of Russia.

Not only Rome and Moscow can be called cities on the seven hills that are connected by a river. According to local mythology and documents, they are complemented by more than 30 other settlements. Moreover, almost 20 of them are in Russia. Interestingly enough, four town are located on the "Golden Ring of Russia". Including Ples (but also Moscow, Vladimir and Murom).

Tourist map of Ples, click to enlarge

Here on the "main street of Russia", as the Volga is figuratively called, the seven hills are reflected by its waters. They are difficult to distinguish on a regular map. This is why we offer you our tips. They will help your understanding of the sights of Ples, as well as inform you where to find those sights.

Sharikha.

This is an interesting place of Ples — its westernmost elevation. Once it had a rounded cape. However in the first half of the 1950s when the city was preparing for the rise of the Volga, land was taken by excavation from Sharikha to strengthen the embankment. As a result the roundness of the hill disappeared.

In 1890 Isaac Levitan depicted the young birches on the Sharikha, leaving "the Birch Grove" painting to descendants. A hundred years later, little remains of her former beauty. This is why on September 22 of 2012, the participants of the Fifth Levitan Festival, among whom famous patrons Kirill Ignatiev and Boris Teterev, Lithuanian theater and film actress Ingeborg Dapkunaite and opera singer Olesya Petrova, were the first to start the restoration of the grove. By the spring of 2013 more than 500 new birch trees were planted on Sharikha.

Hospital Hill.

Here at the western end of K.Marx Street there are two healthcare facilities. One is an old Gorbunovskaya Hospital, the other is the newer Ples Polyclinic.

Gorbunovskaya Hospital is no longer in operation, but its architectural complex (gates, two buildings, kitchen, warehouse, the doctors house) still impresses with its reliability, as well as pleases with its late 19th century brickwork pattern, which adds additional touches to the attraction.

Behind the former hospital there is a small spruce grove and a walking path over a steep slope. From here you can enjoy a beautiful view of the old embankment of Ples, of the Volga and of the Kostroma coast. In hot weather this view point will hide you from the sun in the shade of tall trees.

Ressurection Hill.

This is the name of a high hill in Ples that stands opposite the Resurrection Church, whose golden domes can be seen from on the Market square. So from the top of the Ressurection, as if in the palm of your hand, you can see the historical centre of the Ples, the entire width of the Volga and Serkovo on the other bank.

Once a year on May 9 the folk of Ples, old and young, meet on the Resurrection Hill to celebrate Victory Day and lay flowers at the stele crowned with an Orthodox cross. The stele contains a list of 142 names of soldiers of the Great Patriotic War who died of wounds in Ples hospitals during the war.

Cathedral Hill.

Another attraction of Ples, the Market square, is surrounded by two hills from the west and east. Namely the Resurrection and the Cathedral hills. If the square is taken as the solar plexus of the city (the paths converge here), then Cathedral Hill would become its heart. It began to beat back in the 12th century. It is no coincidence that a monument is adjacent to the Cathedral, on top of which there is a bust of the founder of the Ples fortress, the restored building of the city council and the Assumption Church.

To walk over the slopes of the entire central hill you will have to pass just a little more than one kilometre. However, the contemplation of the beauties seen from it is worth the time spent.

Nikanorka (a road at the bottom of the Clay ravine) and Yuryevskaya St. act as a belt to the Cathedral Hill, and three unique paved ways serve as a sling. Two of them not yet spoiled by anthropogenic factors are on the northern slope, and one on the southern (Descent of Svobody Hill Street).

Pankratka.

In the autumn of 1910 S.M.Prokudin-Gorsky, while performing a series of unique photographs of Ples, captured Pankratka Hill – its smooth slopes bordered by islands of tall trees. On the hill the outlines of the bell tower of the Trinity Church and the dome of the Presentation Church are visible.

Nowadays the eastern slope of Pankratka is strewn with residential buildings. The highest guests of Ples like to come here – ministers, politicians, businessmen, actors, artists. You should also visit this interesting place.

Levitan Hill (Peter and Paul hill).

The locals no longer remember when the hill changed its name. Before, in the pre-Soviet period for sure, it was called Peter and Paul hill. There were two churches (one made of wood, the other made of stone), which gave the name to the hill. In the 1960s, it fell out of use – it was already being called Levitan Hill.

In 1888 the famous artist came up here in his first Ples summer. Isaac Ilyich made two sketches of a local wooden church and its yard.

Nowadays a small sculptural composition "On the palette" reminds of his visit here, as well as the hill's current name. On the gravel laid out in the form of a palette there is a figure of an artist who works standing in front of a sketchbook. And the wooden church, at which the gaze of the bronze Levitan is fixed, has been restored.

The architects replaced the load–bearing beams, roof, quadrangle, dome and cross, installed the floor, ceiling, carriages, infused all the wooden parts with a special compound, opened the windows – one on the north side and four on the south. The temple's iconostasis is designed in the style of Russian small-plastic carving of the 14th century. The icons and their cases are made of mahogany, their frames are made of oak, the quadrangle, the dome, the cross are made of aspen, everything else is pine.

The church was made in its summer version, so it is quite cold in winter. To prevent moisture from accumulating inside this Orthodox landmark it was built without insulating materials.

The Cold Hill.

This is the easternmost hill of Ples. It looks quite chilly, perhaps because there is a thick spruce cap on top of it. From the Cold Hill the spruce forest stretches along the right bank of the Volga for many kilometres. And not far from Cold Hill there was a cemetery "Zelenya", closed after 1917.

You can hide among the spruces not just from the hot sun or bad weather, but also from prying eyes. It was at this interesting place of Ples that the story reflected in the novel by G.T.Severtsev-Polilov "The Developers" had begun. The characters' prototypes were Isaac Levitan, Sofia Kuvshinnikova and a young beautiful married Old Believer Anna Grosheva. These three were devising a plan for Grosheva's escape to Moscow, and met "secretly in the evenings" in the vicinity of the Cold hill. While the women were discussing the details, the artist was on the lookout. The creative nature was not asleep – I. Levitan saw a new possible picture, which he began to paint in the morning. The finished painting was named "Evening. Golden Ples".