Iron goose museums. Goose-Iron. Ryazan region - attractions. Gus-Zhelezny: photo. Gus-Zhelezny from a quadcopter

Gus Zhelezny is located only twenty kilometers from Kasimov in the Ryazan region, so we decided to sacrifice a visit to the local history museum in favor of visiting the village, which houses one of the most unusual churches in the Ryazan region. (I talked about Kasimov here). The fact is that in a relatively small settlement, surrounded by forests, in the 19th century, a grandiose cathedral of white stone was built in the neo-Gothic style, which does not look like traditional Orthodox churches. This temple is visible from several kilometers away and even from a distance it amazes with its size.

Goose Iron. Cathedral

These places have always been rich in iron ore deposits. This is what attracted the Batashev mining owners here in the 18th century, who founded the village. Since the Gus River flows nearby, and the main enterprise was an ironworks, the village began to be called Gus Zhelezny.

Goose Iron

How it all began

The history of the rise of this family, famous throughout Russia, began with Ivan Timofeevich Batashev, a Tula blacksmith. Somehow he enlisted the support of a wealthy industrialist and favorite of Peter the Great, Nikita Demidov, and began buying up land on which he built iron foundries. In addition to two enterprises on Tula soil, Ivan Timofeevich founded another plant in Medyn. He bequeathed all his property to his sons Rodion and Alexander. After the death of the second brother, everything went to Rodion, who in turn transferred the property to his sons Andrei and Ivan. The founding of the village of Gus Zhelezny is associated with the names of these brothers.

Having inherited sufficient capital and two factories (since Medynsky was closed by the state to stop the destruction of the forest in that area), the brothers began to buy up land and peasants in those provinces where iron ore deposits were found. For enough a short time they built several factories in different areas and became rich. The Batashevs also received government orders for the production of cannons and cannonballs, which greatly contributed to their prosperity. Among other things, they supplied anchors and cannons to the Arkhangelsk port under construction, and delivered them on their own ships.

For their numerous services, the Batashev brothers were awarded the title of nobility in 1783. After this, Andrei and Ivan divided their property. Gus Zhelezny became the residence of Andrei Rodionovich Batashev, who was nicknamed the “Iron King”.

Goose Iron

His personality was very ambiguous: on the one hand, he was a rather smart and enterprising person. Many of the ideas that he introduced into production were innovative for that time. In addition, Andrei Rodionovich allocated huge funds to charity, building hospitals, churches and shelters for the disadvantaged. On the other hand, Batashev was unusually cruel and treacherous; it was rumored that he led a bandit gang that robbed local merchants and minted counterfeit coins in the basements.

Goose Iron

The horrors of the manor's house in Gus Iron

He drove serfs from all his estates to Gus Zhelezny and in just two years built a huge manor house surrounded by a high fence, erected a dam and expanded the plant. The estate was called the “Eagle’s Nest” and it was famous throughout the area for the horrors happening inside. Andrei Rodionovich built the main house so long that, according to rumors, one part of it was in the Ryazan province, and the other in the Vladimir province. So he tried to avoid taxes and, in fact, his house did not belong to any administration.

Goose Iron

The mansion was surrounded by a huge park with greenhouses and ponds. The high brick walls surrounding the estate made it a real impregnable fortress. The estate had its own “garden of horrors”, in which the cruel owner tortured the guilty servants.

In addition, the estate had a “pavilion of love”, in which the most beautiful serf girls were forced to entertain Batashev’s guests. Often after such feasts, the girls drowned themselves in the master's pond. They also say that under the estate there was an extensive system of underground passages in which counterfeit coins were minted. One day, having learned about the impending state inspection, Andrei Rodionovich ordered the dungeons to be filled up along with all the workers. According to various sources, about three hundred people were killed in this way.

They also say that Batashev was a Freemason, and members of the order often gathered in the secret rooms of the estate. Andrei Rodionovich was married three times and had several children. His second wife was a serf, to whom he signed a manumission document before the wedding. He married his third wife while still married to his second.

How estates die

After the death of Andrei Rodionovich, many years of litigation began among his many heirs. None of his sons possessed the acumen that helped Andrei Rodionovich get rich. Only under his grandson Manuil Ivanovich, the plant in Gus Zhelezny started working again and began to generate significant income. Unfortunately, Manuil Ivanovich was also unable to raise a worthy successor to the family. After his death, his son Victor sued his mother Zinaida Vladimirovna for a long time for the inheritance until he died. Zinaida Vladimirovna, the last resident of the estate in Gus Zhelezny, was shot for anti-Soviet views after the Kasimov rebellion. She was 75 years old at that time. A children's sanatorium was located in the former Batashev estate, which we saw during our trip.

Manor in Gus Zhelezny today

Unfortunately, I didn’t prepare in advance and didn’t know many of the stories about the Gusev estate, so I mistook the dilapidated building for a Soviet construction and didn’t even take pictures of it. The remains of the former fortress wall have still been preserved, and the location of the house on a high hill makes it quite likely that there are dungeons under the estate.

Other attractions Gus Zheleznoo

The most outstanding landmark of Gus Zhelezny is the majestic Trinity Cathedral, which Andrei Rodionovich planned to build. However, he did not even live to see the start of construction. The construction of the temple began in 1802 according to the design of a famous architect. Which one is not mentioned anywhere, but many assume that it could be V.I. Bazhenov, since the cathedral was built in a rare location for the Ryazan region and for Orthodox churches neo-Gothic style and resembles the Vladimir Church in Bykovo with its elongated windows and proportions ( my story about visiting Bykovo). However, Bazhenov died, like Andrei Rodionovich Batashev in 1799, and, therefore, the famous architect could only be the author of the project, and someone else brought it to life.

Goose Iron

The construction of the Trinity Cathedral was completed only in the second half of the 19th century, and now it is the hallmark of the village of Gus Zhelezny. A monument to the Batashev brothers was erected next to it in 2008, and a little to the side there is another monument dedicated to the natives of the village who died in the Great Patriotic War.

Goose Iron

Otherwise, this is an ordinary and rather small settlement, where there are no cafes or hotels. However, it is definitely worth a look here for the unique and very unusual architectural monument erected in the Ryazan outback by an unknown architect.

The toponymic dictionary of Evgeniy Pospelov states that the name of the settlement Gus comes from the river of the same name. For toponymy - the science of the origin of names - this is a common thing. Rivers similar to Goose gave their names to Moscow, Samara, Tomsk and others. But where the Gus River got its name is a big question. The traditional association with poultry sounds, but looks unconvincing, because Goose is kept company by rivers that do not have such clear names. In the Ryazan region there are nearly nine hundred rivers and rivulets, and along with the Goose, Unzha, Vorsha, Kishnya, Solotcha, Narma, Kad, Ushna, Tolpega, Niverga, Kolp flow, familiar to the ears of Pra and Oka. The vast majority are distinguished by their longevity - rivers outlive peoples and civilizations, going back to the pre-Slavic past. It is known that a thousand years ago, before the arrival of the Slavs, Finno-Ugric peoples lived here on earth, their current descendants - the Mordovians - live next door. Mordovians are not united - they are two nationalities - Moksha and Erzya. Interestingly, according to one of the scientific interpretations of the name of the city of Ryazan, there is a simple rearrangement of syllables from the old Erzyan - this happens often in the language.

Logic dictates that the roots of the name Goose are hidden in the Mordovian language, where a similar-sounding “kuz” is found, and in the Finnish language “kuusi”, both of which are translated as “spruce”. This argument is also weighty because from time immemorial names have been given based on the uniqueness of the place. A taxi to Dubrovka will undoubtedly take you to an oak grove, which is surrounded by traditional forest. Most of Meshchera is occupied by pine forests and birch thickets in burnt areas, clearings and swamps, because the soil here is sand, and only pine can tolerate such hungry conditions. But in the east of the Ryazan region, as you approach Gus and Kasimov, the soil becomes richer, and it’s easy to notice - from a car, before reaching Gus-Zhelezny, light pine forests give way to dense pine-spruce forests. By the way, Ramenskoe near Moscow apparently comes from the word ramen - this is a spruce forest. So the names of the tourist center “Yolochka”, Ramensky and Goose are the same root, only in different languages.

If you move further away from the Goose into the forest and come across a suitable clearing, it is quite possible that you will find ditches the size of a man. A hundred years ago, ore miners lived in these places and dug holes and ditches - “pipes” - along the banks of lakes and rivers, and even in the forest. The “pipers” mined swamp ore, from which they made iron. That's why they called the goose the Iron Goose. Looking for Meshchera deposits on a map is a futile task; geologists are not interested in iron-poor bog ore. The same could not be said about the domniks - they didn’t know anything better, and the teams of “pipe makers” worked here until the 18th century. Brown iron ore is easy to recognize when you meet it - the banks of Goose, Pra and Narma are completely covered in red-red spots. If you dig deeper, then four meters into the ground there are ore layers 20-30 centimeters thick. Ore from a birch or aspen forest was more valuable, iron from it was more pliable, but ore from a spruce forest was harder and stronger. It has been possible to obtain more and more ore since the days of the Meshchera reservoirs. They searched with an iron pole - a “rod”, and got them out with long-handled scoops. The ore was taken in August, dried, roasted and transported to smelt until October. The ore was boiled in a furnace on charcoal, while bellows were manually inflated in its lower hole for a constant flow of air. This is how they made strong iron, and the blacksmiths forged axes, nails, locks, stirrups and many other useful things from it.

The German traveler Peter Simon Pallas once looked into these places; in his diary dated August 1, 1768, he writes that behind the village and the Chaura river “the old limestone with shells appears again,” “we finally stopped at the village of Mishkina, having crossed the Sintur river, flowing with the above into the Gus River.” “An iron plant with a high blast furnace was built here, owned by the Tula merchant Balashov, where iron ore is brought from the Oka.” This is how Pallas’s small Goose is mentioned in “Travels through Various Provinces of the Russian Empire.”

Although the local swamp ore was poor, it made the nobles Andrei and Ivan Rodionovich Batashev fabulously rich. In 1758, the brothers acquired vast lands in the vicinity of the Verkutsy churchyard in Vladimir district, built a pond near the Gus River and erected an iron foundry nearby. The first to come out into the world was their grandfather - the Tula blacksmith Ivan Timofeevich Batashev, who in the era of Peter the Great served as manager of Nikita Demidov, the founder of the dynasty of Tula gunsmiths. Cannons and cannonballs were supplied from the blacksmith's factories to supply the Russian army. The metallurgy of the Batashevs reached the Vladimir, Kaluga, Nizhny Novgorod, Ryazan, Tambov and Tula provinces. Within the Melenkovsky district, on the Gus River, two empires were formed - glass and iron. In the upper reaches of the river, the Maltsev merchants created a glass production center, while downstream the Batashevs settled and became the kings of the metallurgical kingdom in Gus-Zhelezny. For about a century and a half, two Geese were listed as belonging to the Vladimir region, but in the 20th century, after a series of administrative and territorial reforms, Gus-Zhelezny turned out to belong to Ryazan.

The Batashev brothers built their residence in Gus exactly like a medieval one. Behind a powerful red brick fence with turrets and loopholes for firing muskets, a two-story house-palace and a theater were built, peaches and pineapples were grown in greenhouses, there was a park, and quarters for guards and servants. The brothers used their power to the full: it is known that the Batashevs once stole an entire village from an intractable owner who did not want to sell it. In one night, all the huts were dismantled and transported to the land of the Batashevs, armed servants also herded the peasants here, and in the place of the manor’s house and village it ended up being a plowed field. Self-will reached such extremes that it gave rise to a legend that the Batashevs’ house was built exactly on the border of the Vladimir and Ryazan lands, therefore, when inspectors, for example, from Vladimir, came in response to numerous complaints, the brothers went to the Ryazan side, and when they came from Ryazan, they hid from Law on Vladimirskaya.

In the meantime, the management was playing around, up to a thousand peasants were working for it, and they were doing it for mere pennies. There is a document: “Inventory and assessment of the movable and immovable estate of the cornet Grigory Martynov, son of Svishchev, located in the Kasimov district in the village of Borki. Committed on May 17, 1784... There are peasants in the yard: Pimen, whose price is three rubles, Moses, whose price is three rubles. Pimen has a wife, Anna Afanasyevna, whose decrepitude deserves no price. They have an illegitimate adopted son, raised by them Korney through his godfather Mikheev, who is worth ten rubles. Moses has a wife, Afrosinya, whose price is four rubles. The daughter is a girl Maria, whose price is one ruble. The hut is a black pine forest with seventeen crowns, dilapidated, with four fiberglass windows, covered with shingles. The clay oven costs only two rubles and fifty kopecks. The front canopy is dilapidated and costs ten kopecks. In the courtyard there is a pine bathhouse with thirteen crowns, covered with straw, costing one ruble.” In the Batashev workshops, such Pimens and Moses worked hard, whose price was fifty dollars more than a clay stove. Andrei Batashev remained in history as an extremely cruel person. It is no coincidence that a legend has survived to this day, according to which Batashev, having learned about the upcoming inspection, destroyed the evidence by opening the floodgate and flooding the underground workshops, while up to a hundred peasants were minting counterfeit money for him.

Batashev’s entrepreneurial spirit attracted the attention of the producers of a project on the REN-TV channel about the mysticism and mysteries of civilization. Television people, discussing the topic of immortality and life extension, put Batashev on a par with Chinese centenarians and ancient Sumerians. They drew attention to the Masonic column, which was installed in the local cemetery in the village of Gus-Zhelezny. Next to the column is the grave of Andrei Batashev. The author of books on the history of alchemy, Andrei Fomin-Shakhov, says that when the grave was opened in the 1980s, it turned out to be empty. The disappearance of the landowner is allegedly associated with immortality, and his cruelty towards the serfs is associated with a secret that he carefully hid. The editors of the “Race of Immortals” program suspect what exactly Batashev was doing in the underground workshops.

The hard-working Gusevites were tormented by more than one generation of Batashevs. The factories were working, but the pay for labor was extremely unstable - sometimes the wait for a salary could reach three months. When patience ran out, the people's anger made itself felt - they went to the factory. True, walking for money was, as a rule, fruitless. The grandson of Andrei Batashev - Emmanuel Ivanovich - turned out to be a worthy descendant of his grandfather. Under him, production volumes grew and equipment was updated. It was at the factories of Emmanuel Batashev that they launched the first regenerative puddling furnace in Russia with two working spaces. True, it was under him that the plant came into operation. In 1904, the demand for pig iron fell sharply, military orders were reduced, and iron ore reserves on the banks of the Goose were depleted. Soon the owner fell ill and died. The last owner of the estate in Gus-Zhelezny was Emmanuel’s widow, Zinaida Vladimirovna Batasheva. In 1918, all her property was confiscated by the Soviet government. The 75-year-old woman was shot on November 16, 1918. The verdict of the revolutionary tribunal read: “For active and passive action against Soviet power.” In 1931, they even dealt with the dead Batashevs, opening their family crypt. Thus ended the rule of the Batashevs in Gus, which lasted exactly 160 years. Today, a children’s boarding school is located in the rather shabby Batashev palace. A red brick wall leads into the old park - there are centuries-old linden trees and paths trodden by local and visiting pedestrians. The spirit of that time captured even the house that joined the place children's creativity. Legends also remain in Gus-Zhelezny. They talk about underground passages that are supposedly located inside the old estate-fortress. The romance of these places is unique. And you can feel it when you find yourself face to face with the Trinity Cathedral. It was erected by order of Andrei Andreevich Batashev, and it took 66 years to build - from 1802 to 1868. It is believed that the author of the cathedral project was the famous architect Vasily Bazhenov, the builder of the Pashkov House in Moscow. The church smells of the Middle Ages - people come to look at the Gothic temple from the most distant corners of Russia. From Ryazan to Gus it is 138 kilometers, along the road to Kasimov through Klepiki and Tuma. From Moscow you can get here along the Yegoryevskoye Highway. From Gus there is a road to Lubyaniki, from where few people know the walking route to Brykin Bor through the Oka Biosphere Reserve.

The city of Gus-Zhelezny is located on a river called “Goose”, which gave it the first part of its name. The second part is due to the rich deposits of iron ore in the urban area. Already in the 18th century, an iron foundry arose here, which developed in subsequent years.

The most famous mining family was the Batashevs, whose founder was the Tula blacksmith Ivan Timofeevich Batashev. It was he who began to build the first factories on the Tulitsa River, after which he developed large enterprises in Medynsky district. All his factories went to his sons, who continued their father's work. For several generations, the Batashevs have continued the work of Ivan Timofeevich. In 1783, the Batashev family became noble. Andrei Batashev builds a luxurious estate for himself and lays the foundation for the Trinity Church, which, despite its impressive size, looks quite slender.

The name of Andrei Rodionovich is mysterious and covered in a veil of many secrets. Due to the fact that his entire estate was surrounded by a thick brick wall with towers, it seemed to the common people that the nobleman had something to hide. It was assumed that behind the seven-meter wall all sorts of atrocities were happening, akin to which probably happened in the palace of Count Dracula. The most common rumor is that A.R. Batashev was a Freemason. Secret rooms were created in the house for his meetings with other members of the order. In addition, he is credited with minting counterfeit money. There is a legend that on the eve of the upcoming inspection, Batashev hastily filled up the hall with his “mint” along with three hundred workers.

The residential village of Gus-Zhelezny arose along with the founding of the first factories. In the 18th century, only iron foundry workers lived here. In 1940, it became the center of the Belkovsky district, which was formed in 1935. The village of Belkovo initially received the status of a regional center because it was here that the road from Moscow to Kasimov passed. By 1960, the district was abolished, and its lands were divided between the Kasimovsky and Tumsky districts. In 1964, Gus-Zhelezny received the status of an urban-type settlement, which it remains to this day.

Construction of the temple begins in 1802. The work continued for more than half a century and the final touches were applied to the cathedral only in 1868. According to some unconfirmed information, the Trinity Church was designed by architect V.I. Bazhenov.

This temple was not the first in Gus. Before the construction of the stone cathedral, there was a wooden church here, consecrated in the name of John the Baptist. The shrine burned to the ground in a fire in 1802, immediately after which a two-story stone church was founded. The main financier was Andrey Batashev, but last year In his lifetime, in 1825, the church building was ready only up to the dome. The bell tower and refectory rooms reached the cornice. Despite the incompleteness, divine services were already taking place in the new cathedral, since three altars on the first floor were consecrated. The first altar is dedicated to Nicholas the Wonderworker (consecrated in 1816), the second to the chief apostles Peter and Paul (consecrated in 1818), and the last altar to the great feast of the Nativity of Christ (consecrated in 1823). After the death of Andrei Rodionovich, work was suspended for several years. In 1847, the heirs of the Batashev family took the construction of the temple into their own hands, and in 1868 a celebration was held to consecrate the main altar - in the name of the Holy Trinity.

The interior decoration of the temple was extremely rich; The icons and other temple relics were no less luxurious. Among the parishioners, the icon of the Virgin Mary, called Bogolyubskaya, was especially revered. This image was donated by the Bogolyubsky Monastery. The miraculous icon was silvered and covered in places with gold. The second church attraction was a silver altar cross with the relics of St. John the Merciful.

When designing the Trinity Church, the author of the project undoubtedly drew his ideas from the architecture of the Middle Ages. The colossal church is built of brick and faced with white stone. The majestic image of the temple combines features of Baroque, classicism and pseudo-Gothic. However, there are not so many baroque elements, or rather, there are none at all, as such. The complex appearance with semicircular projections, beveled edges and niches refers to this architectural style. Classicism is manifested in the calm completion of the cathedral and the clear dome. Pseudo-Gothic motifs are lancet openings, gable pediments on the sides of the octagon, vials and double columns. There is no analogy to the resulting masterpiece!

After the 1917 revolution, the temple was closed. Until that time, it was considered an estate. In the summer of 1948, the church was opened as a general temple. Today, regular services are held in the cathedral. The church can accommodate up to 1200 parishioners.

Address: Ryazan region, Kasimovsky district, town. Gus-Zhelezny

The location for the graveyard was chosen very well, since all the features of the local landscape were taken into account. The architects of the past had an unspoken rule: the temple should be a kind of beacon on land.

Gusevsky, or, as it is also called, “Guzsky” churchyard in the 17th century was decorated with two churches and had a large market place, which, by the way, was founded against the will of the Kasimov ruler. However, his dissatisfaction was in vain - trade in the churchyard flourished. The identity of the financiers of both temples is unknown today. And a lot of money was spent. One of the churches, Preobrazhensky, was built over 80 years. In addition to it, a church was built here in honor of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker and a small chapel.

The first to attract the eye is the Transfiguration Church, thanks to the huge vertical bell tower, but the earlier building in this strange, stylistically dissonant ensemble is the St. Nicholas Church. It was built in 1771, when classicism was most popular in Russia. Despite the period of construction, the forms of the temple and its volumetric composition, directed upward, demonstrate the Baroque of the 17th century, albeit in an updated interpretation. But the semicircle of colonnades of the northern and southern facades is made in the best traditions of classicism. They are excellently decorated, although the capitals look heavier than in ancient examples.

The second church, Spaso-Preobrazhenskaya, is quite different from the previous one. The grouping of masses here is distributed in a horizontal plane and is burdened by a reduced refectory and limits. The light rotunda rising above the lower tier is distinguished by its beauty and originality of decoration.

Adjacent to the refectory from the west is a three-tier bell tower built in 1829, again Baroque, but in a new stylistic interpretation, almost Rastrelli-esque, which is probably where the opinion was born that its author could be the great Rastrelli. Her exterior is just as brightly individual. First of all, the tiers are plastically richly decorated, columns in the corners, braces, flowerpots, etc. The belfry evokes not only a desire to admire, but also a delight of surprise: on the four cardinal points there are bas-relief figures of saints, probably the fathers of the church, two on each side of the base. In their outlines one can see something European, Romanesque. The fact that such a unique work appeared on Ryazan lands remains a mystery.

Today, the Church of the Transfiguration is operational and liturgies are periodically served there. The Church of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker is inactive. The dilapidated building is not being repaired by anyone, and the “antique” colonnades, like the rest of the walls, are becoming more and more fragile every year.

Address: Ryazan region, Kasimovsky district, village. Pogost (8 km from Gus-Zhelezny)

The famous Andrei Batashev immortalized his name in the memory of descendants, among other things, with his luxurious estate, of which, however, little remains today. The main mansion of the “Nest” is architecturally close to typical urban public buildings of its era. The house is strongly elongated along the longitudinal axis, the decorative elements of the facades are strict and almost devoid of decorative elements. Nowadays, it is practically unremarkable, except perhaps for its size. But Andrei Rodionovich’s contemporaries certainly had a completely different opinion. According to documentary evidence from eyewitnesses, the estate resembled “either a fortress or some kind of medieval castle.” And this is understandable: the house and the adjacent garden were surrounded by a high stone wall, and at the entrance to the dam there was a watchtower with a large iron goose on the spire. It's a gloomy sight, isn't it?

The estate also housed a serf theatre, a menagerie and a poultry house. In the garden, divided into three parts, gazebos and greenhouses were built in which exotic fruits were grown: oranges, peaches and others, uncharacteristic for our latitudes. One of the parts of the park bore the eloquent name “Garden of Horrors”, since it was intended for corporal punishment and, possibly, torture. In addition, there are legends about the existence at that time of a vast underground complex that connected the house with the factory and other buildings. To protect their land and plant A.R. Batashov was allowed to keep a regiment of armed soldiers, so the analogies with a medieval castle are quite logical.

People still have legends about the passions that took place behind the impregnable fortress walls. According to one of them, escaped convicts minted counterfeit coins in the dungeons. Rumors about this illegal occupation reached the government and an investigator was sent to Gus-Zhelezny, upon whose arrival Andrei filled up the entrance to the catacombs, burying alive all the workers who were in the “minting workshop” at that moment. Another legend tells us about the mysterious disappearance of a police officer who arrived at the plant to investigate some matter. Much later, a corpse was discovered in one of the walls. Copper buttons were found on the remains, which suggested that he was a government official. There are other legends, for example, that Batashev led local robbers, or that the Tatar prince, the owner of the lands adjacent to the estate, was killed in the Eagle's Nest... It is now unknown whether any of these stories are true, and if yes, then by how much. Andrei Rodionovich was never convicted and ended his life on his native estate.

Now the estate vaguely resembles idylls in the paintings of old masters. Cows graze peacefully in the park, in the distance rises the silhouette of a church with a stopped tower clock... As if all those horrors that the legends of Gus-Zhelezny tell about did not happen. But if everything was calm here, then where did so many legends come from? As they say, there is no smoke without fire.

Address: Ryazan region, Kasimovsky district, town. Gus-Zhelezny

There are two monuments in Gus-Zhelezny that may be of interest to guests of this small, quiet village. One of them is a monument erected in honor of the founders of the settlement - the Batashev brothers. Memorial stele was installed in 2008 on the main square, near the Cathedral of the Life-Giving Trinity. Its opening was timed to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the founding of the ironworks and the village on the Gus River. Next to it there is a small monument, directly to Batashev. A commemorative inscription is applied to the black marble slab, and it is decorated with a cast-iron rose, which is made with such grace that such material would seem incapable of.

The second monument dedicated to the valiant defenders of the Motherland who died during the difficult years of the Great Patriotic War, located not far from the first one, all on the same cathedral square. There is a long list on the monument, which contains the names of all the natives of Gus-Zhelezny who gave their lives for the freedom of their families. At the end of the list there are several recent entries that indicate that the search for missing persons continues.

By bus

Since there is no railway station in the village, you can only get here by bus. Railway ends in the city of Kasimov, from which the bus takes half an hour. Capital flights also arrive in Gus-Zhelezny 5 hours after departure from the Shchelkovo bus station. You can get to the village from Vladimir by direct flight; the bus takes 3 hours and 20 minutes. Ryazan buses arrive in Gus 3 hours after departure.

Geographical encyclopedia

Urban settlement Gus Zhelezny Country Russia Russia Federal subject ... Wikipedia

Gus-Zhelezny- town, Ryazan region. It arose in the second half of the 18th century. like the village at the ironworks on the river. Goose; later Gus Batashevsky was also called by the name of the founder of the plant, Batashov. In Sov. time s. Goose Iron, design similar to... ... Toponymic dictionary

An urban-type settlement in the Kasimovsky district of the Ryazan region. RSFSR. Located on the river. Gus (tributary of the Oka), 18 km north-west from the city of Kasimov. Mechanical plant, timber mill. The village of G. Zh. arose in the 18th century. at the ironworks... Great Soviet Encyclopedia

Gus-Zhelezny- 391320, Ryazan, Kasimovsky ... Settlements and indexes of Russia

Goose Characteristics Length 147 km Basin area 3910 km² Basin Caspian Sea Basin of the Oka → Volga rivers Watercourse ... Wikipedia

Goose: Wiktionary has an entry for “goose” Geese (lat. Anser) genus ... Wikipedia

R. see Goose Iron, Goose Khrustalny Geographical names of the world: Toponymic dictionary. M: AST. Pospelov E.M. 2001 ... Geographical encyclopedia

Goose- R. see Iron Goose, Crystal Goose... Toponymic dictionary

Gus The Gus River in Gus Zhelezny Flows through the territory of the Ryazan and Vladimir regions of Russia Source in the area of ​​the village of Arsamaki (Gus Khrustalny district of the Vladimir region) ... Wikipedia

Books

• Moore. History and sights, Glushkova Vera Georgievna. The book tells about the very ancient noble Russian city of Murom and its surroundings. The main events of the long history of Murom are told, much attention is paid to its Orthodox...

Still, the most wonderful time to open the road travel season is the May holidays: everything is in bloom, it’s warm/cool and all that jazz.
To shorten the preamble as much as possible, I will say this: on one of the May holidays, various family circumstances made it desirable for us to be present in a village with a meaningless name on the border of the Vladimir and Nizhny Novgorod regions. Deciding to combine business with pleasure, we planned a mini-tour.
We didn’t really want to stand on the Moscow Ring Road on May 9, so we decided to drive from Tula through Ryazan and Murom. Google also laid out a route through Gorokhovets, a city that we did not have time to visit on our previous trip along the Golden Ring. It turned out to be a pretty decent four-day route: Tula – Ryazan – Kasimov – Murom – Gorokhovets – Nizhny Novgorod – and back, the one-way distance is about 670 kilometers.
Despite mutual assurances that we needed to leave as early as possible on the 9th, it turned out as always: we taxied out of Tula only at 10 in the morning. Minor glitches in the navigator in Ryazan due to traffic closures on a holiday did not greatly affect the route, so after noon we were moving in the opposite direction from Ryazan, having decided to dedicate a separate trip to this glorious city in the very near future.
Bouncing on potholes and playing the Russian national game “slalom on the road”, 20 kilometers before Kasimov we suddenly saw this amazing structure ahead and a little to the left on a hillock:

The unique Trinity Cathedral in the village of Gus-Zhelezny dominates the surrounding landscape - fortunately, the surroundings are the most ordinary. It was impossible to drive past.

What we learned as a result:
The village of Gus-Zhelezny was founded in the 18th century on the site of the ironworks of the Batashev brothers - Andrei and Ivan Rodionovich.

For almost a hundred years, the enterprise flourished, since the site had everything necessary for the production of cast iron - iron ore and water from the Gus River. After the ore dried up, production was stopped, the dam slowly collapsed, just like the rich manor’s estate, which was finally put an end to revolutionary events. The remains of the dam remain to this day:

View from the dam:

Somewhere on the outskirts of the village you can find a fragment of a wall and what remains of the manor’s house. But this place has a bad reputation, and here's why.
There are legends about, to put it mildly, the fierce character of Andrei Rodionovich (who, by the way, was a Freemason). According to omniscient Internet sources, in the huge basements of the estate there were workshops in which Batashev’s serfs minted counterfeit coins. When the authorities finally launched a special operation to catch the counterfeiters, on the orders of Andrei Rodionovich, the basements were filled up using an ingenious engineering method, burying the unfortunate people alive. These and other stories (such as the legend that one end of the cellars went to the Ryazan province, and the other to the Vladimir province) make Gus-Zhelezny a mysterious and mysterious place.
Many questions can be attributed to the Trinity Cathedral. It is generally accepted that it was laid by Andrei Rodionovich himself. However, he died three years before construction of the cathedral began in 1802. Researchers also say that the architect Bazhenov (also a Freemason) had a hand in the development of the project, but it seems that no documentary evidence of this fact has been found.
The cathedral is unique: huge in size, it combines elements of a variety of architectural styles. The walls are Romanesque, the windows are lancet Gothic, and at the same time there are onion domes Orthodox churches with crosses. The main characteristic of the cathedral is that it was built in a pseudo-Gothic style unique to the Russian hinterland:

Today Gus-Zhelezny, despite its glorious past, is not only never a city, but not even a regional center. Its population is just over 2,000 people, there is no tourist infrastructure, although some excursion groups making a stop here on a one-day trip from Ryazan to the city of Kasimov.
This turned out to be an unplanned, but interesting stop along the way!

A few minutes later we entered Kasimov, which, according to the information at the entrance, was “in 1152.”

I really wanted to visit this city for one simple reason: to see how the monuments of Orthodox and Muslim Tatar culture rhyme.
The main street in Kasimov, as it should be in any self-respecting city... no, not Lenina. Soviet.
Here is Sovetskaya Street (parallel to it are Dzerzhinsky and Tatarskaya. “Horses and people mixed in a heap”):

The street is completely fine: two-story mansions in cozy colors with traces of recent restoration. The street ends at the city park and the main city cathedral - Voznesensky, and on the left is the square, also Sovetskaya. But in some sources – Sobornaya. From there we started exploring local attractions. They can be divided into several categories.
The first is Orthodox churches.
The main one has already been discussed here - this is the Ascension Cathedral, which is relatively recent - built in 1854.

Opposite is the Assumption Church (built from 1756 to 1775). Unfortunately, it clearly requires restoration work:

The Annunciation Church with an openwork forged cross on the dome (built in 1740, the bell tower attached to it in 1868) is located lower to the river.

On Easter week we were invited to climb the bell tower and even ring the bell. We gladly took advantage of the first offer: there was a wonderful view from here...

... to the Ascension Cathedral and shopping arcades:

...on Oka:

... and the lower part of the city:

In total, we counted eight Orthodox churches in the city, although, I think, the figure is approximate and inaccurate.

The monumental shopping arcades behind Sovetskaya/Cathedral Square immediately evoked associations with the Kostroma shopping center:

Three buildings with columns in the Empire style (I’m not that smart, it’s the Internet that gives out references) were built in 1767-1844. I’ll add on my own behalf: it’s clear that they were recently restored, but the question of the quality of the work done leaves no options. The quality is lousy. How else can you explain such a disgrace?

They were afraid to go down to the Oka River along Naberezhnaya Street even on foot: the devastation, the road washed away by the flood in the pits, the burnt buildings. But the Ryazan descent is completely different - very decent and even picturesque. View of the Oka:

View from the Oka to the Ryazan descent (aka ascent):

And also the obelisk of the Petrovskaya outpost:

The embankment is more of an observation deck. What was confusing was the fact that all the people on the embankment at that moment were husking the seeds, forming a circle of husks with a meter radius around them. Kids played in front of spitting mothers in crop tops. A clearly drunk guy also stood out. In short, everyone had a cultural rest on their legal day off. Somehow it became sad, so we turned back.

Before leaving, it was necessary to turn to the third category of attractions - Muslim monuments. There are several of them in Kasimov: the Old and New mosques and two mausoleums - the so-called tekie: the tekie of Shah Ali Khan and the tekie of Avgan Mohammed Sultan.
The old mosque with a minaret was discovered quite quickly:

Even to an amateurish glance it was clear that the minaret was older than the mosque itself. Indeed, the mosque and minaret were originally built at the same time - in 1467. For some reason, the mosque building was destroyed in 1702, but the minaret survived. In 1768, the mosque was rebuilt, and even later, in the 19th century, a second floor was added to it. Now there is a branch of the local history museum (the museum itself, as already mentioned, is in the former house of the merchant Alyanchikov).
And here is the current mosque - the New one, built in the 19th century:

Somewhere next to the Old Mosque is the mausoleum of Shah Ali Khan. When I was preparing for this trip, I saw photographs - a garage is a garage. Concrete. Blocky. But no - this is one of the oldest buildings in the city, dating back to 1555 and made of limestone slabs. Inside are the graves of Shah Ali Khan, his wife and relatives. I confess honestly, we somehow took the search for this mausoleum lightly. And what kind of address is this: “next to the Old Mosque”?! I can’t explain it now, but we decided not to circle further in search of this “nearby”, but began to search for the last architectural landmark planned for visiting: the Tekie of Avgan Mohammed Sultan. The address from the Internet was “reassuring”: “Mr. Kasimov, the end of Malaya Okskaya Street farthest from Oka” (!) Is it worth continuing that such a street was not listed in the navigator. We scored the coordinates - N54 55.024, E041 25.174. Andrey flatly refused to consider the path chosen by the navigator as a road. As an alternative, he suggested switching to a tank. We didn’t have a tank, so we decided to consider the sightseeing tour of Kasimov closed and move on to the second part of our trip - now around the Vladimir region.