Once I already spoke about an interesting architect who built temples and belfries in the territory of the modern Ivanovo region, but only at the very beginning of the 19th century.
This architect was from either Italy or Switzerland. In the documents you can find him nicknamed "German from Turin." In those days, the word German was used not specifically for the representatives of Germany, as is happening now. The word German was a noun, formed from the word dumb, that is, unable to speak.
That architect was called Maricelli. In Russian documents he is also called Yakov Yakovich.
I spoke about this architect Maricelli in connection with the bell tower in the village of Teterinskoye, located near the city of Nerekhta. That bell tower is visible from the highway, as its height is 60 meters. This, by the way, is the only bell tower built by Maricelli, which has survived to this day.
Today we are talking about another bell tower, which Maricelli began to build. This is a unique structure in its height of 106 meters. Maricelli himself began construction, but when the height of the tower reached the third tier, the construction could not stand it and collapsed. Somewhere there was a mistake in the calculations, and maybe in the construction technology.
But the fact remains. The bell tower collapsed and caused losses of more than 100,000 rubles. As a result of the scandal, the architect had to flee from Shui and from Russia.
The construction was completed by a Russian self-taught architect. Mikhail Savateev, a peasant in Vladimir County, with the support and guidance of architect Petrov. This happened only by 1832, 22 years after the start of construction.
As I said, the height of the bell tower is 106 meters. This is the highest bell tower in Russia, if we consider only separate buildings. In St. Petersburg, the height of the bell tower in the Peter and Paul Fortress is 122.5 meters. But this is not a separate building, but part of the Peter and Paul Cathedral.
This conversation about the bell tower in the city of Shuya was caused by the fact that the other day I visited this city on the way. I traveled from Kostroma to the city of Nizhny Novgorod.
This is a decent distance of 300 kilometers. I decided to drive through my favorite places - the village of Dunilovo and the village of Goritsy and then, the city of Shuya.
By the way, Dunilovo and Shuya are on the same river which is called Teza.
Since I was driving through the city of Shuya, I only had time to go around the famous bell tower and around the Resurrection Cathedral.
The cathedral was built and commissioned in 1799. Then a bell tower was built in a couple to the cathedral. The cathedral survived until the 20th century, and grew rich. Over a hundred and a few years of its history, the cathedral has accumulated great cultural and historical values in the form of cult objects, books and other values.
With the advent of Soviet power, in an attempt to take away the values of the cathedral, clashes arose and as a result, armed soldiers from the Bolshevik authorities opened fire on believers.
As a result, several people were killed. In the investigation of these killings, several church officials were found guilty, who later were also shot.
It was a high-profile Shuy affair of 1922.
Now in front of the bell tower is a monument that is dedicated to just those events. When the soldiers of the NKVD shot the defenders of the faith.
Having walked around the cathedral and the bell tower, I decided that I would definitely come to the city of Shuya again and look around. Small cities in Russia hide the real story that is worth exploring.
