Yaroslavl is 280 km north of Moscow on the Volga. Entering Yaroslavl we really find ourselves in a seventeen century fairy-tale. Streets, embankments, squares and churches are the exhibits of the Yaroslavl-museum. However, let's go back to history of this wonderful city. Historians date founding of Yaroslavl to the year 1010. There is an old legend about the building of small wooden fortress named after Prince Yaroslav on the place of pagan settlement. It says that Prince Yaroslav was traveling around his lands whith a large retinue and came to Bear Corner. The inhabitants of the settlement worshiped bear as a sacred animal Local people let loose a bear. But the Prince fought the beast and killed it with his battle-axe. This legend explains why the coat of arms of Yaroslavl shows a bear and an axe. Since that time lots of unique churches has been built. If we walk on to the center Yaroslavl, the oldest part of the city. Here we can see one of the finest specimen of the period when the Yaroslavl architecture was at its height - the Church of Elijah the Prophet. It was built in 1647-1650. The composition is strictly balanced. Its very impressive. The ornaments are beautiful. The interior of the church is a real treasure - store of Old Russian art, containing rare specimen of fresco- and icon-painting, as well as many types of decorative and applied arts. The frescoes are painted on the damp plaster shortly after it had been applied. The wall-painting of Yaroslavl church was strictly regulated by the church. The composition illustrates the acts of Apostols, the life and miracle of Elijah, deeds of Elijah's pupil, Elisha. The theme of Yaroslavl architectural monuments is endless. There still is a lot of nice places we did not cover here in. These are squares and parks, memorials and churches. What wonderful viev one can get from the Volga embankment. Volzhskaya Naberezhnaya is marvelous. In the museum of the city's history one can learn the history of Yaroslavl during thousands years. The "Music and Time" museum owned by John Mostoslovsky is the Russian first privat museum, which has a unique collection of old clocks and musical instruments. We try to preserve cultural traditions of the rich past of Yaroslavl. "Yaroslavl Icon" ,a school of icon painting was opened in 1992, continuing cultural traditions of ancient Russian art. Yaroslavl icon - painting have been awarded great honour of painting the frescoes in the rebuilt church of Christ of Savior in Moscow. The production of decorative ceramic tile has been reborn in Yaroslavl. These tiles form the richest decoration of many city's churches. Yaroslavl is proud of its long - standing cultural traditions. Our city brought Russia its first professional magazin and its first professional university - style institute of higher education. And today Yaroslavl is one of the major centres of education, a city of youth and students, with seven higher educational establishments.

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