Borovsk



Borovsk (Бо́ровск) is a town in Kaluga Oblast, Russia, located just south from its border with the Moscow Oblast. It is situated on the Protva River, about south-west of Moscow. Population: 10 684 (2010),  12,000 (1969).

Borovsk is known to have existed since the thirteenth century as part of the Ryazan Principality. In the fourteenth century, it was owned by Vladimir of Serpukhov, but passed to Muscovy when his granddaughter Maria of Borovsk married Vasily II.

In 1444, the celebrated Pafnutiyev Monastery was founded near Borovsk. Its strong walls, towers and a massive cathedral survive from the reign of Boris Godunov. Two famous Old Believers, archpriest Avvakum Petrovich and boyarynya Feodosiya Morozova, were incarcerated at this monastery in the second half of the seventeenth century.

Among the monuments of Borovsk are the oldest wooden church in the region (the seventeenth century) and a museum of Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, who lived and worked there as a teacher in 1880–1891. Borovsk has recently been known for painted façades of its down-town buildings, resulting from a work of one amateur local painter.