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)

Zasetsky House in Vologda

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

Point 6

Zasetsky House

🏟️ Architectural landmark

Historical Background

This is the oldest wooden house in Vologda. It was built in the 1780s by the government official Sergei Afanasyevich Shchulepnikov, but it is known by the name of its last owners. In 1900 it was bought by Varvara Yakovlevna Zasetskaya, and in 1901 it passed to her husband, the actual state councilor Nikolai Alexandrovich Zasetsky. Nikolai Alexandrovich was a well-known physician and teacher, a professor at Kazan University. From the 1880s he lived in Kazan and rented out the Vologda house. Among other things, it housed Vologda's Second Municipal Four-Grade School, later reorganized into a higher elementary school. In Soviet times the building housed various organizations, mostly educational ones. By the end of the 20th century the house had become unsafe and stood empty for a long time.

Architectural Features

The house was originally built in a strict Classical style. The log building was clad in smooth planks. The main facade, facing the former Peterburgskaya Street (now Leningradskaya), was decorated with a four-column Tuscan portico. The columns supported a Classical entablature topped by a triangular pediment with modillions — a typical feature of Vologda architecture of the 18th–19th centuries. In the mid-1810s a mezzanine floor was added to the originally single-story building, above the enfilade of rooms facing the western courtyard facade. In 1897 an attic story was added, and the street facades received lavish carved decoration in the eclectic spirit. At the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries the facades were richly decorated with applied fretwork and relief carving. Despite the alterations, many original late 18th-century Classical interior details survive, as do the tiled stoves.

A Happy Fate

In 2020 the house found a new guardian: it was bought by the Vologda patron of the arts German Petrovich Yakimov. Thanks to his care and support, restoration began. Today the work isn't just about saving old logs and details — it's about bringing back the spirit of the era, so that the building can keep telling locals and visitors about the past. Alongside the restoration of the main house, the reconstruction of the outbuilding that once stood on the street line of Leningradskaya Street began in 2024.