First day
Day Two. Rich Well – Paramonov Warehouses – Bogatyanovka – Don Cossack Guards – Pokrovsky Garden Square – Pushkinskaya Street – Sholokhov Center
At the end of the Embankment, opposite the road, there are picturesque dilapidated constructions of a complex of grain warehouses of the 19th century. This place is well-known by Rostovites and city visitors and shortly called Paramonov Warehouses. They are a national cultural heritage site. The warehouses were built in such a way so that the warehouses were cooled by running spring water. The springs have remained to this day and are an attraction for romantics.
At the end of the Embankment, before you turn out to Bogatyanovsky Descent, there is a memorial site with a sculptural group – young Peter I takes a bowl with water fr om the hands of a Cossack. There used to be the most powerful spring, which, as the legend runs, the tsar called Bogaty Kolodez (literally translated as “rich well”). The fortress was built with this spring as a reference point.
We go up Bogatyanovsky Descent. This road used to lead to the center of the Fortress of Saint Dimitry of Rostov. After the fortress was liquidated, the city started growing rapidly thanks to people coming fr om different parts of the country. Many of them were venturous businessmen, runaway serfs or lawbreakers. However, everybody found a space for living in Rostov, so the city got a nickname – Father Rostov. Modern urban tours along the route are based on these stories.
Culture also developed in pre-Revolution Rostov. Pay your attention to the large red-brick building with white lancet windows at the intersection of Bogatyanovsky Descent and Sotsialisticheskaya Street. It was built for a commercial school in 1900. Nowadays, it is one of the buildings of the Don State Technical University. The Cultural and Exhibition Center of the Don State Technical University Don Cossack Guards is also located there. You can get to know the most remarkable facts and interesting pages in the history of our fellow townsmen, Cossack lifeguards of Russian emperors. Everything is special in this museum. The exposition, the only one in the country, is based on a private collection with several augmented reality exhibits. The visit often ends with forgotten gastronomic traditions of the Don area. For example, coffee served with a herring. Strong coffee is made in a jezve on the sand.
Go one quarter up and find yourself in the city’s main street, Bolshaya Sadovaya Street. You see the Rostov State Music Theater – a huge building resembling a white grand piano with its lid open, which is located opposite a historical place. In the 18th century, the center of the Fortress of Saint Dimitry of Rostov used to be on the spot wh ere Pokrovsky Garden Square is located now. To keep the memories on the origins of Rostov-on-Don, the monument to Empress Elizabeth Petrovna was installed there. Next to it, there are small granite stands with extracts from the decrees on establishing a custom house and building a fortress. Not far is a model of the fortress. The small Staro-Pokrovsky Church, the fourth on this place, is a jewel of the garden square.
Along Kirovsky (formally called Bogatyanovsky) Avenue, you can get to Pushkinskaya Street. This section of the boulevard is very green and shadowy. However, through branches of trees, you can easily see the Don State Public Library. At first glance, it looks gloomy – high blind walls without windows are faced with tufa. But if you get inside, you find yourself in paradise. Lights tones of the interiors, much daylight coming through the glass ceiling, greenery of the winter garden with fountains. In the library, various events take place one after another: expositions of books, exhibitions of local artists, concerts. For example, during the academic year, Bibliojazz concerts take place every month. Students give the concerts. The Rostov Jazz School is well-known in our country and abroad. An independent Department of Pop and Jazz Music, the first in the USSR, was opened at the Rostov Arts School. And its creator Kim Nazaretov, a jazz legend, was Russia’s first Pop and Jazz Music Professor. In summer, open-air concerts are frequent in front of the library, and you may be lucky to get to a concert of the Symphony Orchestra of the Rostov Philharmonic Hall.
The used books stall works all year round near the library’s walls, book lovers are at risk of spending a lot of time there.
Young people are always engaged into various activities near the library. So, if you want to see a quieter Pushkinskaya Street, go back to Kirovsky Avenue and keep on going along Pushkinskaya Street. The boulevard has beautiful themed decor – open-work lighting globes with scenes from works and life of A. S. Pushkin. There are residential buildings of the Soviet era, benches for rest. At the intersection of Pushkinskaya Street and Krepostnoy Lane, there is a food fair, wh ere you can buy vegetables, fruits and locally produced goods.
If you go back to Bolshaya Sadovaya Street along Krepostnoy Lane, you will see a monument to the Founders of the Fortress of Saint Dimitry of Rostov and another national cultural heritage site. The red-brick gothic building is a house of Martyn brothers. Now it houses the Sholokhov Center of the Sholokhov Museum Reserve, which is a venue for interesting exhibition and cultural and educational projects.
As you walk farther along Bolshaya Sadovaya Street, you find yourself in Pervomaysky Garden Square and see the Rostov Regional State Philharmonic Hall opposite to it. There are always many event posters on its walls that introduce you to the city’s cultural life. It is pleasant to have a walk or a rest sitting on a bench in Pervomaysky Garden Square. The garden square neighbors the campus of the Rostov State Medical University. Part of its buildings are cultural heritage sites and protected by the state. There is a stele in Pervomaysky Garden Square to commemorate the fact that the territory of the Fortress of Saint Dimitry of Rostov ended there.
The walking route above covered only half of the fortress. It was really large, however, after it was liquidated in 1835, all its constructions gradually disappeared. The city got only its name and territory. On this site, there were the city’s outskirts. In 1928, the area of Rostov-on-Don became substantially larger, as it merged with the neighboring city of Nakhichevan. You can get to know this part of the historical center of Rostov, if you continue your walking tour.