Tobolsk

Tobolsk is a historic capital of Siberia, now an ordinary town in Tyumen Oblast, Russia. It is located at the confluence of rivers Tobol and Irtysh. Tobolsk is the only town in Siberia and one of the few in Russia which has a standing stone Kremlin, or elaborate city-fortress, built at the turn of the 17th and 18th centuries. The principal monuments in the Kremlin are the Cathedral of St. Sophia (1683–1686), a merchant courtyard (1703–1705), an Episcopal palace (1773–1775), and the so-called Swedish Chamber, with six baroque halls (1713–1716). The city contains some remarkable baroque and Neoclassical churches from the 18th and 19th centuries.

Exiles in Tobolsk

The first political exile to Tobolsk was a church bell from the town of Uglitch. It was a symbolic punishment for the rebellious alarm bell against boyars, when the Tsar’s son Dimitri was killed. In 1593 the bell was transported to Tobolsk by the disgraced Uglitch residents. The chapel was specially built to keep the bell confined. So the dramatic history of exiles to Siberia began, due to which a remote and underdeveloped province got in touch with a lot of prominent people.

Sightseeing in Tobolsk

Tobolsk Kremlin

Before the time the Tobolsk stone Kremlin was built at the beginning of the XVIIIth century, a lot of its wooden precedents had been constructed on the Troytsk cape. The first wooden Kremlin was built in 1594.