Sviiazhsk

a village in Verkhnii Uslon Raion, Tatar ASSR, at the confluence of the Sviaga and Volga rivers. The construction of the Kuibyshev Reservoir turned the village’s site into an island.

Sviiazhak was founded in 1551 as a fortress, which had been assembled in four weeks from parts prepared near Uglich and floated down the Volga. It served as a base for the Russian forces during the siege of Kazan in 1552. In the second half of the 16th century it became a district city, and in the 18th century it was made part of Kazan Province. Since 1932, Sviiazhsk has been a village.

Architectural monuments include the church of St. Constantine and St. Helena (1704), Uspenskii Monastery, and the Monastery of St. John the Baptist. Uspenskii Monastery is noted for its cathedral (1560), which is decorated with 16th-century frescoes; originally built in the Pskov architectural style, the cathedral was reconstructed in the baroque style in the 17th and 18th centuries. The monastery complex also includes St. Nicholas Church (1556), which was rebuilt in the 17th and 18th centuries from a square one-pillared refectory with a church. The Monastery of St. John the Baptist (formerly St. Sergius Trinity Monastery) includes the wooden Trinity Church (1551, rebuilt) and the church of St. Sergius (rebuilt in the 17th and 18th centuries from a late-16th-century square one-pillared refectory with a church).