Kalyazin Bell Tower
Interesting facts
- The belfry once held twelve bells, the largest weighing 1,038 poods, about 17 tonnes, cast in 1895 to mark Nicholas II's accession.
- Across the river stood the Makaryev Monastery, founded in the fifteenth century; its refectory of 1525 also disappeared under the reservoir.
- In April 2014 the reservoir dropped so low that the tower briefly stood surrounded by dry land instead of water.
- The town takes its name from Kolyaga, a fifteenth-century landowner, though a settlement existed here from about the twelfth century.
- After the flooding, Kalyazin was effectively rebuilt on a new, higher site above the reservoir.
- The tower is the end point of the Upper Volga religious procession, which sets out from Ostashkov near the source of the river.
- The 2021 restoration cost about 104 million rubles and added architectural lighting, so the tower now glows over the water at night.
Why it is worth it
In the middle of the Volga near Kalyazin, a slender five-tiered bell tower stands on a small island of its own, with water where the town square used to be. It is the belfry of the cathedral of St Nicholas, and it has become one of the most familiar images of Russia's drowned towns: a classical tower, about 74.5 metres tall, rising without a church from the river, its reflection doubled in still water.
The belfry was completed in 1800 after some six years of building, in a restrained classical style, with stacked tiers of arches, a small dome and a tall spire. It stood beside a cathedral built in 1694, at the heart of the old town on the upper Volga. In the 1930s the Soviet state dammed the river for the Uglich hydroelectric scheme; in 1939 the reservoir flooded the old centre of Kalyazin. The cathedral was dismantled, but the tower was spared because river pilots needed it: it marks a very sharp bend in the channel, and it served as a navigation mark for shipping.
For decades it stood with its base in the water, slowly weakening. In the late 1980s the foundations were reinforced and an artificial islet with a landing stage was built around it, which is why it now seems to float on a small patch of ground. Services are held in it from time to time, a liturgy in 2007 among them; five new bells were hung in 2016, and in 2021 the cross, spire, clock and façade were restored.
The tower is best seen from the embankment of Kalyazin or from the water, early or late in the day, when the river is calm and the tiered shaft rises against the sky with nothing around it. It appeared on a Soviet postage stamp in 1991 and remains the emblem of the town, a quiet monument to everything that went under the reservoir.
Getting there
The belfry stands in the Volga off the shore of Kalyazin in Tver Oblast; the nearest larger town is Kashin, about 20 km away. Sheremetyevo International Airport (SVO) near Moscow is about 145 km away. From Kalyazin's riverfront, boats take visitors out to the island's landing stage; the tower can also be seen from the embankment.
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From the encyclopaedia
The Kalyazin Bell Tower is a Neoclassical campanile rising to a height of 74.5 metres (244 ft) over the waters of the Uglich Reservoir on the Volga River opposite the old town of Kalyazin, in Tver Oblast, central Russia.
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