RIA Novosti invites its readers on a photo tour of Russia. Today's city is Kostroma.
The city of Kostroma is a major river port on the Volga River.
The first written reference to Kostroma dates from 1213. Photo: the Fire Tower on Susaninskaya Ploshchad, the symbol of Kostroma.
The Ipatiyevsky and Nikolo-Babayevsky fortified monasteries sprung up around Kostroma during the 8th and 9th centuries to defend the approaches to the city.
In 1613 Mikhail Fyodorovich Romanov was crowned tsar in the Ipatiyevsky Monastery. That is how Kostroma became the "cradle" of the Romanov Imperial Dynasty.
The city is also home to the Bogoyavlensky-Anastasiin Convent, founded in 1426.
The bell tower of the Bogoyavlensky-Anastasiin Convent, constructed in the 17th century.
The Church of the Virgin of Smolensk in the Bogoyavlensky-Anastasiin Convent.
The Epiphany Cathedral (photo) also contains the icon of Our Lady of St. Theodore, the patron icon of the Imperial House of Romanov.
The Trading Rows shopping complex (formerly "The Red Rows") in Kostroma, built in the 18th and 19th centuries, is the largest shopping center in Russia to survive from pre-revolutionary times. Photo: the Trading Rows and the bell tower of the Savior Church.
