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Kirov is the capital of Kirov Oblast, a city of about 470,000 people on the Vyatka River, 896 kilometres north-east of Moscow. Known as Khlynov from 1457 and as Vyatka from 1780, it was renamed in 1934 after the Bolshevik Sergei Kirov, who never visited it. The city is home to many Russian folk crafts, from Dymkovo clay toys to burl-wood carving.
The city is usually dated to 1374, and it was the centre of the Vyatka Land settled by Russians in the Middle Ages. The Trifonov Monastery was founded here in 1580, and in the 18th and 19th centuries Vyatka grew into a provincial town of stone churches, merchant houses and political exiles such as Herzen and Saltykov-Shchedrin.
Visitors begin at the Trifonov Monastery and Spassky Cathedral, then walk the pedestrian Spasskaya Street past old trading rows and museums. The Vasnetsov Art Museum, the Tsiolkovsky space museum, the rotundas of Alexander Garden and the ponds of Central Park fill the rest of a stay.
The Trifonov Monastery is the men's monastery founded in 1580 by Saint Trifon of Vyatka by the Vyatka in Kirov, its ensemble of churches, walls and towers now a federal monument. Its Assumption Cathedral of 1684-1689, the oldest building of the city, is the cathedral of the Vyatka metropolis.
Kirov Spassky Cathedral is the church of the Saviour Not Made by Hands in the historic centre of the city, at the corner of Spasskaya and Kazanskaya streets near the Trifonov Monastery. Built from 1763 to 1818 in early classical style, it was closed in 1929 and has now been almost fully restored.
Spasskaya Street is one of the oldest streets in the centre of Kirov, laid out in 1784 and named after the main tower of the old Khlynov kremlin. Most of its buildings are architectural monuments, and its stretch from Kazanskaya Street is a pedestrian zone called the Vyatka Arbat.
Kirov Alexander Garden is one of the oldest parks of the city, laid out in 1825 and opened in 1835 on a cape above the Vyatka, and named after the heir to the throne, the future Alexander II. Its entrance and railings were designed by Alexander Witberg, and its riverside rotunda is a city symbol.
The Vasnetsov Art Museum is the largest art museum of the Kirov region, opened in Vyatka in December 1910 by the local art circle at the initiative of the painters Viktor and Apollinary Vasnetsov. Its collection of more than 22,000 works includes paintings by Aivazovsky, Shishkin, Surikov and Repin.
The Tsiolkovsky Museum of Aviation and Cosmonautics in Kirov occupies the house of 1858 where the family of Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, founder of space science, lived in 1873-1878. With a children's space centre opened next door in 2018, it shows rocket and space hardware and cosmonauts' belongings.
The Kirov Regional Museum of Local Lore is one of the oldest regional museums in Russia, opened in Vyatka in 1866 at the urging of Pyotr Alabin, after an exhibition prepared by Alexander Herzen in 1837. It shows the history and nature of the region, with branches in historic buildings of the city.
The Saltykov-Shchedrin House-Museum is the house in Kirov where the satirist Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin lived in exile from 1848 to 1855, when the city was called Vyatka. It opened in 1968 as a literary branch of the regional museum and tells the story of the writer's years in the provincial town.
The Dymkovo toy is the painted clay toy of Kirov, born in the riverside settlement of Dymkovo, now inside the city, from the spring whistle festival of Vyatka. Each figure is shaped by hand from local red clay, fired, coated in white and painted in bright patterns, so that no two are ever the same.
Kirov Central Park fills a whole block in the middle of the city and is a favourite place to relax. A cascade of artificial ponds climbs to the Diorama building, shaped like a waving flag and housing a history museum, and the park also holds the Kirov Circus, opened in 1977, and a ferris wheel.
Alexander Grin Square lies low in one of the ravines that cross the historic centre of Kirov, using the slopes to frame a large fountain in its depths. Its design is devoted to the romantic world of the writer Alexander Grin, who was born in the Vyatka region, and it is a popular place for walks.
The Vyatka University Botanical Garden lies at the bottom of a ravine in central Kirov and has a history of more than 100 years. Students and teachers of Vyatka University tend its collections, including displays of plants from the Caucasus, the Far East and North America, and it is open to walkers.
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Photo: Ele-chudinovsk, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
