Pskov Krom

The Pskov Krom is the kremlin at the very origin of the city: a narrow, high promontory where the Pskova River flows into the Velikaya, fortified since at least the 8th century and first named in the chronicles as the "Krom" in 1113. The ensemble covers the Krom itself, about 3.5 hectares, and the adjoining Dovmont's Town, about 1.5 hectares, named after the 13th-century prince who walled it. In the days of the Pskov Republic, from the 14th to the early 16th century, this was the political and spiritual core of the land: the veche assembly met on the square beside the cathedral, next to the kremlin's storehouses.

Pskov was a border fortress facing the Livonian Order, Lithuania and Sweden, and it withstood at least ten sieges. After the city joined the Muscovite state in 1510 it became its largest stronghold in the northwest, ringed by four lines of walls about 9 km long, with the Krom as the innermost and strongest core. Its most famous test came in 1581–1582, when the city held out against the army of Stefan Batory and helped Russia avoid heavier losses at the end of the Livonian War; Swedish forces were also repelled in 1615. The stone walls, 6–8 metres high and up to 6 metres thick along the southern front known as the Persi, are topped by covered wooden galleries, and towers such as the Kutekrom and the Middle Tower were built around 1400 and in 1416–1419.

Above the walls rises the Trinity Cathedral, completed in 1699 as the fourth church on this spot, and nearby stand the Prikaznye Palaty of the 1690s, the only surviving 17th-century civil building in the kremlin. Much of the complex was in ruins by the 20th century and was restored from 1952 onwards; in 2010 a fire destroyed the tent roofs of the Vlasyevskaya and Rybnitskaya towers. Today the Krom is part of the Pskov Museum-Reserve. Visitors can walk the grounds, view the excavated remains of medieval Pskov in Dovmont's Town and look out over the meeting of the two rivers.

Getting there

The Krom stands in the centre of Pskov, a few hundred metres from the main streets. Pskov Airport (PKV) is about 6 km away but has only limited domestic flights. Most visitors arrive by train, with daily services from Saint Petersburg and an overnight train from Moscow, or by long-distance bus from Saint Petersburg.