Volokolamsk Kremlin

Photo of route “Volokolamsk Kremlin” — 3

11 points2 km3 hours

Volokolamsk is the oldest town in the Moscow region. It was once an important strategic point that needed strong defenses, and its kremlin provided them. This route takes you around the kremlin and its surroundings and introduces you to the town's ancient history, as well as local legends and myths.

Route author

Susanin Team

Things to do

📜 Learn the city's history
🏛️🕰️ Compare the eras

Route points (11)

Government Offices in Volokolamsk

Point on route “Volokolamsk Kremlin”

Point 10

Government Offices

🏟️ Architectural landmark • 🌿 Public garden or park

Historical Background

It's always nice to visit a pretrial detention center purely as a tourist — especially when it's a cultural site of federal significance. All the institutions important to townspeople's lives are packed remarkably tightly on the town rampart. The government offices building is yet another part of this “town on the rampart” — or rather, a whole administrative complex. As a local saying goes: “Born on the Val, schooled on the Val, married on the Val, did time on the Val, and buried from the Val.” It's the second-to-last of these that concerns us here.

The Mystery of the Name

In the Russian Empire a “prisutstvennoye mesto” (literally “place of presence”), or simply “prisutstviye”, was the name for a government office. It contained an audience room where a commission of important officials of Volokolamsk District held its sessions.

Architecture

Working rules, schedules and interiors were strictly regulated — and so was the exterior. The architecture of government offices was kept in the style of Russian Classicism. The main building (the District Government Offices) was built to a design by S. E. Tatarinov in 1813–1815. It is a two-story plastered building. By 1858 a prison had been built at the back of the courtyard.

More History

In Soviet times it housed a court and a pretrial detention center. During World War II the prisoners were evacuated, and the police officers formed a partisan unit. Today, as before, it is a pretrial detention center. You can only marvel at the historical continuity of Volokolamsk Pretrial Detention Center No. 2 — something that even some of Volokolamsk's cathedrals didn't get.