From an Ancient Settlement to the City of Vologda

15 points2 km4 hours

This route takes you deep into the city's history, from the first settlements to the heyday of merchant Vologda. Along the way, layer after layer of the city's past is revealed: traces of fortifications, the sites of former squares, and corners with carefully preserved wooden houses and carved front gardens that tell of the everyday life and tastes of Vologda's people through the ages.

Route author

Vologda Tourism

Things to do

📜 Learn the city's history
🌆🌿 Soak up the atmosphere
🍲🎶 Local culture

Route points (15)

Carved Palisade in Vologda

Point on route “From an Ancient Settlement to the City of Vologda”

Point 4

Carved Palisade

🏟️ Architectural landmark • 🏛️ Museum

Historical Background

This is a monument of 19th-century wooden architecture, built in 1852 in the late Classical style. Today it houses the Carved Palisade Center for Folk Arts and Crafts. The first owners were the family of the collegiate councilor Ivan Yakubov. After the official's widow died, the house was bought by relatives from Yaroslavl — the landowner Sokolov and his daughter Alexandra Efimovna. The family lived on the ground floor, and the servants upstairs. After the revolution the owners were moved upstairs, and exiles were housed on the ground floor. Later the house became a workers' dormitory. In 1981 it underwent its first major overhaul and was handed over to a children's art school, which used it until 2006. Then the house was again declared unsafe. In 2010 the city allocated money for its restoration, and in 2011 the Carved Palisade Center for Folk Arts and Crafts opened here.

What Lies Behind the Words “Carved Palisade”?

Many tourists instinctively associate the phrase with the patterned carving that decorates house facades. In fact, a palisade (palisad) is a small fence in front of a house. The historical fences around Vologda's houses were usually simple — just a low picket fence. They were made low on purpose: so as not to hide the elegance of the wooden houses, and so that a pretty girl could look out of the window and pick out her future husband.

Where Are You, My Dark-Eyed One?

The story of the phrase “carved palisade” is closely tied to a song written in the 1950s by the composer Boris Mokrousov and the poet Mikhail Matusovsky. For a long time the song went unnoticed, as if waiting for its moment. That moment came in the 1970s, when the band Pesniary added it to their repertoire. Their version became a hit all over the Soviet Union — and suddenly everyone was talking about Vologda. The people of Vologda, however, were rather surprised to hear the lines about a carved palisade: where were these carved fences? By then front fences were being torn down en masse as streets were widened, and almost none were left. But art turned out to be stronger than reality: if there's a song, there will be a carved palisade.