According to Loverists, Murom is located on the high left bank of the Oka River, 137 km southeast of Vladimir.
The first mention of the city appeared in the Tale of Bygone Years and refers to 862. Archaeological excavations show that already in the 6th-7th centuries, a fortified settlement existed on the site of the modern city. For a long time, Murom was a border post on the eastern outskirts of Kievan Rus. It was located on the water trade route between Russia and Volga Bulgaria. The border position of Murom became the reason for periodic attacks on the city. At the beginning of the 11th century, Gleb, the son of the Kiev prince Vladimir, received Murom as an inheritance. In the middle of the XI century Murom became part of the Chernigov Principality and became the center of the Murom-Ryazan inheritance. In 1145, as a result of civil strife, the Murom-Ryazan land was divided into separate principalities – Murom and Ryazan. The Principality of Murom fell under the hand of the Vladimir princes. In 1237, Murom was defeated by Batu Khan. Tatar raids were repeated regularly. And after another raid in 1293, the surviving residents left the city.
The city was revived only in the middle of the XIV century, under Prince Yuri Yaroslavich. In 1392, the son of Dmitry Donskoy – Vasily I – annexed Murom to the Moscow principality, making it a major trading center. Murom blacksmiths and tanners were known far beyond the principality, their products were exported for sale by foreign merchants and merchants from other Russian cities. However, as a result of a pestilence in 1570 and the famine that began after it, the city fell into decay for a long time. During the Time of Troubles, the city was devastated and burned by the troops of Pan Lisovsky. Murom gradually revived and again became an important trading center in the middle of the 16th century.
Murom Kremlin XVII century was located on the steep high bank of the Oka and was made of wood. The double fortress walls were surrounded by an earthen rampart. The Kremlin was connected to the settlement by two wooden bridges – Bazarny and Spassky. In the second half of the 18th century, at the direction of Catherine II, the Kremlin was dismantled due to dilapidation, and the moat from the side of the Nikolsky and Bazarny gates was filled up.
Under Catherine II, in 1764, as in almost all Russian cities, redevelopment was carried out, as a result of which the city received a rectangular grid of streets, and in 1768 the city wall burned down (and was never restored again). In 1858, regular steamship traffic along the Oka began. In 1880, the construction of the Murom – Kovrov railway line was completed, which gave access to the Moscow – Nizhny Novgorod, and in 1912 the Moscow – Kazan railway passed through Murom. Nowadays, mechanical engineering is developed in Murom, the city is also a place of pilgrimage and is included in the Orthodox route. Currently, in the small city of Murom, there are four active monasteries: two male (Savior Transfiguration and Annunciation) and two female (Trinity and Resurrection) and several parish churches. One of the oldest monasteries of Holy Russia is located in Murom – the Spaso-Preobrazhensky Monastery. According to legend, the monastery arose on the site of the fortified court of the first prince of Murom, Gleb, who built the wooden church of the All-Merciful Savior. Its original name was Spassky on Bor. It was first mentioned in the annals in 1096. The monastery was ruined four times: from Khan Batu, from the Polish Pan Lisovsky, after the reform of Empress Catherine II, in 1918. The monastery was reopened in 1995. The main temple of the monastery is the five-domed stone Cathedral of the Transfiguration of the Savior. The construction of the cathedral is usually attributed to the 1560s. It was erected by order of Ivan the Terrible in memory of the victory over Kazan on the site of the wooden Church of the Savior. The cathedral is distinguished by strict simplicity, as well as monumentality and some severity, since it served during the siege as a place of storage of valuables and a refuge for residents. During the restoration of the Spassky Cathedral in 1885, significant changes were made to its appearance. In 1690, Metropolitan Barsanuphius of Sarsk built a two-storey church of the Intercession of the Most Holy Theotokos. The Church of the Intercession is unusual in that the church itself is located on the second floor, and the first floor houses a bakery, a cook’s room and pantries. The superior building of the Spassky Monastery is the only brick civil building of the 17th century that has survived in the city; it was built in 1687.
The Trinity Convent was founded in 1642 by a wealthy merchant Tarasy Borisov. In the spirit of the latest trends in Moscow architecture, he built the stone Trinity Cathedral on the site of a wooden church founded back in 1351 by Prince Yuri Yaroslavich. At the monastery there was a parochial school for girls. The Trinity Monastery, like all Murom monasteries, was closed in the 1920s. Reopened in 1991. Its architectural ensemble has been preserved almost completely. The Trinity Monastery was revived in May 1991. On the territory of the monastery you can see the Trinity Cathedral of 1642-1643, the gate Kazan Church of 1648, the bell tower of 1652, the wooden church of St. Sergius of Radonezh (the beginning of the 18th century).
Male Annunciation Monastery was founded in 1553 on the site of the Church of the Annunciation by vow by John IV. According to legend, the first temple of the Annunciation of the Mother of God was built in the fortified settlement of Prince Konstantin, who baptized the inhabitants of the Murom land at the end of the 11th – beginning of the 12th centuries. The cruel Murom pagans, not wanting to accept the prince, killed his youngest son Mikhail. The body of the murdered Prince Mikhail was laid next to the temple. In the 16th century, the church-wide canonization of the Right-Believing Prince Konstantin and his children Mikhail and Fyodor was carried out. During the construction of a stone temple, tombs with the relics of princes were found on the site of a wooden one. In the middle of the XVII century. instead of the wooden gate church of St. Archdeacon Stefan, a stone one was built. The monastery was closed in 1919. The brethren settled in the city, continuing to serve in the Cathedral of the Annunciation. In 1940 the cathedral was closed, but in 1942 it was reopened, already as a parish, the only employee in the city until the 1990s, so the cathedral retained its original interior decoration. Reopened in 1992.
The Resurrection Convent was founded no later than the 16th century. In the 17th century At the expense of the Murom merchants Cherkasovs, stone churches are being built: the Church of the Entry into the Temple of the Most Holy Theotokos and the Cathedral of the Resurrection of Christ. The monastery existed until 1764. From 1764 to the 1920s temples were considered ordinary parish churches. Reopened in 2001.
Other religious sights of Murom include the Nikolo-Naberezhnaya Church (1700-1717), the Smolensk Church (1804-1838) and the Cosmodamian Church (1564).
In the center of Murom you can see the water tower. It was built in 1864 by the mayor merchant Ermakov. Water was supplied through wooden pipes to the standpipes. At that time, Murom was one of the few cities that had such a water supply system. Water columns can be seen on the streets of Murom to this day.
There is also a monument to Ilya Muromets in Murom, who holds a cross in one hand and a sword in the other. At the entrance to the city from the side of Vladimir, there is an Epic stone with an inscription in Old Church Slavonic. You can visit the village Karacharovo, in which the epic hero Ilya Muromets was born. The village is now part of Murom. There you can see the hut of the descendants of Ilya Muromets, the church of Guria, Samon and Aviv, the Trinity Church, the estate of the counts Uvarovs (XVIII-XIX centuries), and also visit the numerous springs that arose from the blow of the hooves of the horse of Ilya Muromets.
