Rozhdestvenskaya Square

Rozhdestvenskaya Square took its name from the Cathedral of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin. It refers to the church feast of the birth of Mariya, the mother of Iisus Khristos. The first wooden church was erected here when the fortress was founded, and in fifteen sixty-seven it was replaced with a stone one. The cathedral became the town’s main church; the central gates, street, and square were named after it.

The place was chosen by the main entrance. The square lay on both sides of the Rozhdestvenskiye Gates: one part was inside the fortress, the other in the posad, where craftspeople lived and traded. The main streets converged here, and there stood the tsar’s chamber for Ivan IV’s visits, the voivodes’ houses, and town institutions. By the beginning of the twentieth century, the fortress wall was already gone, but the former road junction remained Sviyazhsk’s main public place.

In nineteen oh five, the town duma decided to open a secondary school for girls here. Sviyazhsk had enough elementary schools, but further education had to be continued in Kazan. In their petition, the duma members explained the burden on a family budget: an employee earned seventy rubles a month in Sviyazhsk, but could not educate three children, because supporting even one of them away from home cost at least forty rubles. Young officials preferred a position in Kazan even with a salary of fifty rubles—there, their children could stay close by.

The treasury did not agree to support the new school in full. Georgiy Vasilyevich Kamenev, the town head, who sought to ensure that Sviyazhsk families could educate their daughters at home, had to look for money and a ready-made building together with the duma members. For the first classes, they adapted a building near the fire brigade: they built two stone walls and added a third story. The progymnasium—a secondary school with a shortened course, initially of four classes—opened in the autumn of nineteen eleven.

Thirty-two girls were admitted to the first two classes. Most were daughters of peasants and townspeople; the poorest were exempted from fees, and scholarships were established for them. Five years later, one hundred fifty-six pupils were already studying here, a seventh class had appeared, and the progymnasium became a full gymnasium. Girls from Sviyazhsk no longer had to leave their families for the first years of secondary education.

The Cathedral of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin was destroyed in the nineteen thirties. In its place remains a grass-covered hill, with foundations underground and a memorial cross. The spacious building of the former girls’ gymnasium at the edge of the square is still occupied by a school. The cathedral’s name has survived, and the decision of Kamenev and the town duma members continues to fulfill its literal purpose: children still come to Rozhdestvenskaya Square to study.