Kholmogory () is a historic rural locality (a '' selo'') and the

administrative center An administrative centre is a seat of regional administration or local government, or a county town, or the place where the central administration of a commune, is located. In countries with French as the administrative language, such as Belgiu ...

of Kholmogorsky District of

Arkhangelsk Oblast Arkhangelsk Oblast ( rus, Архангельская область, p=ɐrˈxanɡʲɪlʲskəjə ˈobɫəsʲtʲ) is a federal subjects of Russia, federal subject of Russia (an oblast). It includes the Arctic Ocean, Arctic archipelagos of Franz ...

Russia Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...

. It lies on the left bank of the

Northern Dvina The Northern Dvina (, ; ) is a river in northern Russia flowing through Vologda Oblast and Arkhangelsk Oblast into the Dvina Bay of the White Sea. Along with the Pechora River to the east, it drains most of Northwest Russia into the Arctic O ...

, along the Kholmogory Highway, southeast of

Arkhangelsk Arkhangelsk (, ) is a types of inhabited localities in Russia, city and the administrative center of Arkhangelsk Oblast, Russia. It lies on both banks of the Northern Dvina near its mouth into the White Sea. The city spreads for over along the ...

and north of the Antonievo-Siysky Monastery. The name is derived from the Finnish ''Kalmomäki'' for "corpse hill" ("cemetery"). Population: The Kholmogory area was at first in historical times inhabited by the Finno-Ugrians "Zavolochskaya Chud", (i.e. "the Chud ho livebeyond the portage"), known also as Yems in old Novgorod chronicles, and Karelians. The first Slavonic population to enter Kalmamäki were Pomors from Vologda area after 1220. As early as the 14th century, the village (the name of which was then spelled ''Kolmogory'') was an important trading post of the

Novgorod Republic The Novgorod Republic () was a medieval state that existed from the 12th to 15th centuries in northern Russia, stretching from the Gulf of Finland in the west to the northern Ural Mountains in the east. Its capital was the city of Novgorod. The ...

in the Far North of Russia. Its commercial importance further increased in 1554 when the English

Muscovy Company The Muscovy Company (also called the Russia Company or the Muscovy Trading Company; ) was an English trading company chartered in 1555. It was the first major Chartered company, chartered joint-stock company, the precursor of the type of business ...

made it a center of its operations in furs. The Polish-Lithuanian irregular forces known as Lisowczycy besieged the wooden fort during the

Time of Troubles The Time of Troubles (), also known as Smuta (), was a period of political crisis in Tsardom of Russia, Russia which began in 1598 with the death of Feodor I of Russia, Feodor I, the last of the Rurikids, House of Rurik, and ended in 1613 wit ...

(1613), but had to retreat in failure.

Exile and prison camps

During the 17th and 18th centuries, the settlement was also a place of exile, notably for ex-regent Anna Leopoldovna and her children including Ivan VI. The use of the location for political prisoners was revived by Mikhail Kedrov, after he was appointed

Cheka The All-Russian Extraordinary Commission ( rus, Всероссийская чрезвычайная комиссия, r=Vserossiyskaya chrezvychaynaya komissiya, p=fsʲɪrɐˈsʲijskəjə tɕrʲɪzvɨˈtɕæjnəjə kɐˈmʲisʲɪjə, links=yes), ...

plenipotentiary for the region. He turned the Kholmogory prison camp into a death camp where mass executions of former officers of the

White Army The White Army, also known as the White Guard, the White Guardsmen, or simply the Whites, was a common collective name for the armed formations of the White movement and Anti-Sovietism, anti-Bolshevik governments during the Russian Civil War. T ...

and others he deemed to be political opponents of the

Bolshevik The Bolsheviks, led by Vladimir Lenin, were a radical Faction (political), faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) which split with the Mensheviks at the 2nd Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party, ...

regime. The death toll was so large and Kedrov's behaviour so cruel that he was relieved of his duties and put in psychiatric care.

Cathedral

In 1682, the six-pillared Kholmogory cathedral was consecrated; the biggest in the region. It was disfigured by the

Communists Communism () is a sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology within the socialist movement, whose goal is the creation of a communist society, a socioeconomic order centered on common ownership of the means of production, d ...

in the 1930s. Many ancient wooden shrines and mills, however, still survive in the neighborhood. One of the nearby villages is the birthplace of the Russian polymath

Mikhail Lomonosov Mikhail Vasilyevich Lomonosov (; , ; – ) was a Russian polymath, scientist and writer, who made important contributions to literature, education, and science. Among his discoveries were the atmosphere of Venus and the law of conservation of ...

. Local artisans—such as Fedot Shubin—have been famed for their craft of

carving Carving is the act of using tools to shape something from a material by scraping away portions of that material. The technique can be applied to any material that is solid enough to hold a form even when pieces have been removed from it, and y ...

the tusks of

mammoth A mammoth is any species of the extinct elephantid genus ''Mammuthus.'' They lived from the late Miocene epoch (from around 6.2 million years ago) into the Holocene until about 4,000 years ago, with mammoth species at various times inhabi ...

s and

walrus The walrus (''Odobenus rosmarus'') is a large pinniped marine mammal with discontinuous distribution about the North Pole in the Arctic Ocean and subarctic seas of the Northern Hemisphere. It is the only extant species in the family Odobeni ...

es. In Kholmogory, a craft of Kholmogory bone carving was developed in the 17th century. The bone carvings from Kholmogory were notable for excellent craftsmanship and perfected technique. The best carving masters from Kholmogory were invited to work in the

Kremlin Armoury The Kremlin ArmouryOfficially called the "Armoury Chamber" but also known as the cannon yard, the "Armoury Palace", the "Moscow Armoury", the "Armoury Museum", and the "Moscow Armoury Museum" but different from the Kremlin Arsenal. () is one of ...

, which performed orders for the tsar's court. The handicraft reached its peak under the reign of

Peter the Great Peter I (, ; – ), better known as Peter the Great, was the Sovereign, Tsar and Grand Prince of all Russia, Tsar of all Russia from 1682 and the first Emperor of Russia, Emperor of all Russia from 1721 until his death in 1725. He reigned j ...

. Currently the carving is being performed at the Lomonosov Bone Carving Factory.

References

External links

An 18th-century walrus-ivory chess set from KholmogoryKholmogory Bone Carving
{{Coord, 64, 13, 36, N, 41, 39, 06, E, display=title, region:RU-ARK_type:city(4150)_source:dewiki Rural localities in Kholmogorsky District Pomors Kholmogorsky Uyezd