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Krasnoyarsk is the capital of Krasnoyarsk Krai and one of the largest cities in Siberia, home to more than a million people on both banks of the Yenisei River, one of the longest rivers in the world. Wooded hills and the rocky ridges of the Eastern Sayan rise right at the edge of the city.
The town began in 1628 as a Cossack fort on a red bluff above the river, which gave Krasnoyarsk its name, meaning "red bank". It grew as a trading and gold-mining center, and in the 19th century it was a place of exile. The painter Vasily Surikov was born here, and two museums keep his memory.
Today the city is known for the small chapel on Karaulnaya Hill shown on the ten-ruble banknote, for the Stolby National Park with its tall rock pillars, and for one of the oldest museums in Siberia. Long embankments, islands on the Yenisei and a large zoo make it an easy city to explore on foot.
The Paraskeva Pyatnitsa Chapel stands on Karaulnaya Hill above Krasnoyarsk, a small brick chapel built in 1852-1855 on the site of an old watchtower. It appears on the ten-ruble banknote of 1997, and the hilltop gives one of the widest views over the city and the Yenisei.
The Communal Bridge carries traffic across the Yenisei in the center of Krasnoyarsk and was opened on 17 October 1961. Its long arches link the old left bank with the right bank, and the bridge also appears on the ten-ruble banknote together with the chapel on Karaulnaya Hill.
Tatyshev Island is the largest island on the Yenisei within Krasnoyarsk, covering about seven square kilometers between the city's two banks. It is kept as a green park with long paths for walking, running and cycling, with open views of the river, the bridges and the hills around.
The St. Nicholas steamboat is a museum ship moored on the Yenisei embankment in Krasnoyarsk. Built in 1886-1887 in Tyumen for the merchant Sibiryakov, it carried the future tsar Nicholas II in 1891 and took Lenin to his Siberian exile in 1897, and now shows its restored decks.
The Krasnoyarsk Regional Museum of Local Lore is one of the oldest museums in Siberia, set in an unusual Egyptian-style building by architect Leonid Chernyshev finished in 1929. Its collection of more than 700,000 items covers the nature, peoples and history of the Yenisei region.
The Surikov Museum-Estate in Krasnoyarsk keeps the wooden family home where the painter Vasily Surikov was born. The larch house dates from the 1830s and opened as a museum on 5 June 1948, his birth centenary, and its courtyard with bathhouse and barns shows a typical Siberian town estate.
The Surikov Art Museum is the main art museum of Krasnoyarsk, named after the painter Vasily Surikov, a native of the town, and traced back to an art department set up in 1921. Its more than 16,000 items include Russian art of the 18th to early 20th centuries and work by Siberian artists.
The Peace Square Museum Center stands on the Yenisei embankment in Krasnoyarsk, in a large building that once housed a branch of the Lenin Museum. Today it is one of the largest venues for contemporary art in Siberia, with changing exhibitions, concerts, lectures and other events.
Stolby National Park lies on the southern edge of Krasnoyarsk, where tall pillars of syenite rock rise out of the taiga. Protected since 1925 and a national park since 2019, it covers about 47,000 hectares, and its trails lead to famous rocks climbed by locals for more than a century.
Roev Ruchey is the zoo of Krasnoyarsk, on a slope of the Eastern Sayan foothills facing the Yenisei, at the edge of the city. It is one of the largest zoos in Russia, with a collection second only to the Moscow Zoo, and keeps Siberian animals as well as species from many other parts of the world.
Bobrovy Log is a ski and leisure park in a valley on the southern edge of Krasnoyarsk, beside the Stolby National Park. Opened in 2006, it has ski slopes and lifts in winter and summer rides and trails, and it was one of the venues of the 2019 Winter Universiade held in the city.
The Intercession Cathedral in the center of Krasnoyarsk was built in 1785-1795 and is the oldest surviving stone building in the city. It is a fine example of the Siberian Baroque style, with terracotta walls set off by white decorative details, and it still holds services today.
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