Murom

Murom (Му́ром; Old Norse: Moramar) is a historic city in Vladimir Oblast, Russia, which sprawls along the left bank of Oka River. Population:

History
In the 9th century, the city marked the easternmost settlement of the Eastern Slavs in the land of Finno-Ugric people called Muromians. The Russian Primary Chronicle mentions it as early as 862. It is thus one of the oldest cities in Russia. Circa 900, it was an important trading post from Volga Bolgaria to the Baltic Sea.

Between 1010 and 1393, it was a capital of a separate principality, whose rulers included Saint Gleb, assassinated in 1015 and canonized in 1071, Saint Prince Konstantin the Blessed, and Saints Peter and Theuronia, subjects of an opera by Rimsky-Korsakov. It was the home town of the most celebrated East Slavic epic hero, Ilya Muromets. The town has a statue which shows Ilya holding the hilt of his sword in the left hand and a cross in the right.

Among other famous natives are the father of colour photography, Sergey Prokudin-Gorskiy (1863), and the father of television, Vladimir Zworykin (1889).

On June 30, 1961, Murom was the site of a spontaneous protest and riot against the police and Soviet authorities, following the death in police custody of a senior factory foreman named Kostikov.

Sights


Murom still retains many marks of antiquity. The Savior monastery, one of the most ancient in Russia, was first chronicled in 1096, when Oleg of Chernigov besieged it and killed Vladimir Monomakh's son Izyaslav, who is buried there. In 1552, the monastery was visited by Ivan the Terrible who commissioned a stone cathedral, which was followed by other churches.

The Trinity convent, where the relics of Sts. Peter and Theuronia are displayed, features a fine cathedral (1642–43), Kazan church (1652), a bell-tower (1652), a wooden church of St Sergius, and stone walls. It is rivaled by the Annunciation Monastery, founded in the reign of Ivan the Terrible to house the relics of local princes and containing a cathedral from 1664. Two last-mentioned cathedrals, being probably the works of the same masters, have much in common with the Resurrection Church (1658) in the downtown. Quite different is the tent-like church of Sts. Cosmas and Damian, built in 1565 on the bank of the Oka to commemorate the Russian conquest of Kazan.