Ivanovo is one of the famous cities in the so-called golden ring northeast of Moscow. The town’s history goes back at least to 1561, when it was mentioned for the first time. It happened in connection with Ivan IV’s transfer of Ivanovo to the Cherkassky family, from whom he had married Maria Cherkasskaya. Throughout the 17th century, Ivanovo developed as a trading town, and its success led Tsar Peter the Great to decide in 1710 that textile factories should be established in Ivanovo. The Tsar sent, among other things, Dutch craftsmen to the city, and many factories were quickly established.

Ivanovo developed rapidly with the textile industry, and in 1787 the town’s first textile printing house opened. In 1825, there were 125 textile factories in Ivanovo, and in 1838 a cotton factory opened, helping to give the city the nickname Russian Manchester. In 1871, Ivanovo was merged with the craft town of Voznesensky Posad, and there were just over 10,000 inhabitants in the town, which until 1932 was called Ivanovo-Voznesensk.

In 1873 the city had been granted city status, and in 1905 Ivanovo-Voznesensk was one of the centers of the revolution, with one of Russia’s first soviets being established here. Throughout the 1900s, the population grew from approximately 60,000 to 460,000 through many new buildings and development of the city.

Today, there are several sights in the big city of Ivanovo, where you can take a closer look at the city’s industrial history, among other things. Ivanovo is the youngest and the most industrialized of the cities in the Golden Ring, and you can start by seeing the city’s newer architecture. The period 1914-1934 became the flourishing years for Ivanovo with many examples of the constructivism of the time, which were designed by locals and architects from Moscow and then Leningrad.

On a tour of the city, from this time you can see Ivanovo Railway Station from 1933, which is the country’s largest station in this architectural style. The exterior of the station and the waiting room are noteworthy examples of design and decoration.

You can also see the Ivanovo Agricultural Bank from 1927, which was designed by the founder of constructivism, Viktor Vesnin. Thus, the bank is an example of a building where all the basic principles of constructivist architecture are present. The Art Palace from 1939 is another example of the style. The palace was built as Ivanovo’s Great Drama Theatre, and it was then one of the largest in the country. Ilja Golosov’s Collective House from 1930-1932 was designed as an example of socialist utopia, where residents only had to leave the complex to work.

Functions such as a nursery, dining room, laundry room and assembly hall were part of life in the house. Finally, you can walk past the Hotel Central from 1929-1930. The hotel building is an interesting example of the combination of constructivist aesthetics with the architectural methods of building pre-revolutionary tenement houses.

The textile industry defined Ivanovo for centuries, and you can of course explore that history. West of the center of Ivanovo, you can take a walk in the so-called first workers’ village. It is a district that was built in 1924-1928 in accordance with the concept of a garden city. The houses were built in half-timbered timber, and the area is a valuable monument of urban planning art from the 1920s, and it stands as one of the first examples of mass industrial construction in the Soviet Union. In the center of Ivanovo, you can see the historic Fokins Chintz and Cotton Factory, which today bears the name Factory for Paper Products.

You can also go for a walk in the center of Ivanovo and, for example, start from the city’s railway station. From here you can go to the long boulevard, Prospekt Lenina, which passes Lenin Square to the south, where you can see the city’s statue of the head of state Lenin.

East from here you can see the Constructivist Horseshoe House from 1934 along the street ul. Gromo buoy. If you continue along it, you will come to the beautiful Vvedensky Nunnery, which was built at the beginning of the 20th century. Further south you can visit several museums such as the Ivanovo Chintz Museum, which presents various fabrics and textiles, the Museum of Art and Industry and a museum of the Soviet car industry.