Ivan the Terrible’s Rage : A Falling Brick May Have Altered Russian History

But for the unlucky fall of a brick, this quiet provincial town in northern Russia might have challenged Moscow as capital of all the land.

That, at least, is the story told by the history books and guides about Vologda, 250 miles northeast of Moscow, which became a prominent trade and culture center in the 1500s.

Today, it gives the impression of being a backwater. Although it is an industrial city of 270,000 people, horse-drawn carts can be seen in the main square and people still wash their clothes in the gentle River Vologda--which means “clear”.

Things could have been different. Ivan the Terrible, a 16th- Century czar noted for his sharp intelligence, persecution complex and fearful rages, decided to make the town his personal capital and watched as the foundations for a fortress twice the size of Moscow’s Kremlin were laid in 1565.

Ivan supervised construction and revelled in the prospect of having a haven away from Moscow, where he feared rivals. History books say he also considered making Vologda the capital, as well as his own personal retreat.

Hit on The head

But when he came to inspect St. Sophia’s Cathedral, the plain, white-walled centerpiece of his stronghold, a brick from the new building fell on his head.

The czar flew into a rage and ordered the whole fortress razed. He later calmed down and changed his mind, but the town subsequently became surrounded by the lush north Russian birch and larch forests which now provide the region’s main industry.

The cathedral, described by one guide as the most beautiful in all Russia, still stands, but the fortress was not completed for many years and then only on a much smaller scale than originally planned.

The center of Vologda is little changed from the 1500s when it was a crossroads for foreign merchants who sailed down from the Baltic and White Sea through a network of lakes and rivers to trade flax, salt and other commodities.

Apartment houses and factories, and other attributes of modern Soviet cities, have been grafted onto this ancient core of two-story wooden houses.

30 Churches

About 30 onion-domed churches still stand in varying states of repair. Some are monuments or warehouses, others are falling down. Only two of them are still working churches, attracting old women from miles around.

Two hours by bus up the old trade road to the north lies the tiny monastery of Ferapontovo perched on a windswept patch of land between two lakes, forgotten by all except a few visitors and chattering jackdaws.

The road to the monastery, founded in 1398 by the Moscow monk Therapontos, passes peat bogs, muddy villages and Lake Kubenskoye, partly hidden by autumnal birch stands.

Inside the bounds of the monastery compound, experts are painstakingly restoring rare Dionysius frescoes on the church’s walls and have many years of work ahead of them.

Dionysius, who worked at Ferapontovo in the early 1500s, is said to have used pulverized semi-precious stones from the shores of the two nearby lakes to make his paints.

Kirillov-Belozersk Monastery to the west of Ferapontovo is on an altogether grander scale. Its imposing 1.2 miles wall encloses several churches and outbuildings as well as rows of gloomy cloisters.

In its heyday the monastery was considered the spiritual center of northern Russia and housed several dozen monks. By the time the Communists took power in 1917 and closed it down, there were just 10 monks left.