Kirillo-Belozersky Museum-reserve will now have another branch – the Apartment Museum of the Writer Vasily Belov located in Vologda. The order on its establishment was signed by the director M.N. Sharomazov on September 4.

      The museum exhibits will include writer’s personal belongings. Preparations for the opening ceremony scheduled for October 21 are being conducted at the moment.

      The ceremony will be dedicated to the birthday of Vasily Belov and will become one of the most significant events of 2015 which was declared the Year of literature in our country.

      The museum is located the ensemble of the Kirillo-Belozersky Monastery, the biggest medieval architectural monument of the North and one of the most prominent creations of Russian art culture. Along the banks of the picturesque Siverskoye Lake there spreads an entire ancient town, founded in the late 15th century. On the territory of 12 ha there are 11 brick churches of the 15th - 18th cc, numerous household outbuildings and enormous fortified walls and towers of the Great Tsars' Fortress.

      

      In the 15th - 17th cc the monastery was the economical and spiritual centre of the Russian North and the richest landowner in favour of the great tsars, princes and famous noble families.

      

      In 1988 Kirillo-Belozersky Museum-Reserve was included in the List of outstanding objects of cultural heritage of Russia.

      

      The museum preserves a unique collection of icons, 5 monuments of church architecture with mural paintings, manuscripts and blackletter books, the most complete collection of folk art of this region, including the unique collection of peasant painted furniture and black-glazed ceramics.

      

      Twenty kilometres away from Kirillov town there is the famous Ferapontov Monastery housing the Museum of Dionisiy's Frescoes. The Monastery is an affiliate of the Kirillo-Belozersky Museum-Reserve and has been under the protection of UNESCO since 2000. In the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Cathedral one can see the preserved mural painting created by the famous Dionisiy in 1502.

      

      The town of Kirillov with the medieval Tsar's Fortress and Ferapontov Monastery with unique Dionisiy's painting put this place in Vologda region among the most attractive tourist sites of the Russian North.

      Address: 161100, 1, Sobornaya Ploshchad/Square, Kirillov Town, Vologda region

      How to get there:

      From Vologda to Kirillov by bus or by car; in summer from Moscow or St.-Petersburg to Selo Goritsy by ship and then by bus to Kirillov