Historic Center of Ryazan

Photo of route “Historic Center of Ryazan” — 3

19 points5 km6 hours

Ryazan is an ancient city with a distinctive history. On this route you'll find out why Kolovrat's horse is rearing while Oleg of Ryazan's stands calmly; who keeps a close watch over the city; where the “Swan Princess” from Vrubel's painting lived; and how Hollywood is connected with an inconspicuous house. And you'll simply enjoy an unhurried stroll through the old streets of the historic center.

Route author

Susanin Team

Things to do

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

Route points (19)

Max Factor in Ryazan

Point on route “Historic Center of Ryazan”

Point 7

Max Factor

📜 Historic site • 🕵️ Urban legend

Historical Background

On Sobornaya Street in Ryazan there still stands an inconspicuous two-story house where, in the late 19th century, an unknown pharmacist, Maximilian Abramovich Faktorovich, opened his first shop. Here he sold his own inventions: powders, creams, perfumes, lipsticks, and wigs of his own making. One day actors of the Imperial Theater, in town on tour, wandered into the little shop by chance. They liked the Ryazan pharmacist's products so much that within a couple of years Faktorovich went from humble shopkeeper to cosmetics supplier to the royal court.

The Birth of an Empire

In America, where Faktorovich moved in 1904, he would become known as Max Factor. Across the ocean, worldwide fame awaited this Ryazan native from Sobornaya Street. In America Faktorovich became the leading supplier of cosmetics to the film industry, an Oscar winner with his own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and the creator of the world's largest cosmetics empire.

The Wrought-Iron Table

Next to the house on Sobornaya where Max Factor took his first steps toward fame stands a wrought-iron “Max Factor Table.” And you can learn the full story of the empire's founder at the Aroma of Time historical salon, in an old building on nearby Koltsova Street.