Mariinsky posad, tsivilsk, yadrin

The small towns in Chuvashia are quiet, cozy and green. They possess particular charm and fascinate with their special beauty.

Tsivilsk was founded in 1589 as a fortress. Many times the town was destroyed by peasant risings. Several times the town burnt but was always rebuilt. In the 17^th century it became a commercial and industrial centre. Merchants and craftsmen appeared among its citizens. In 1786 Catherine II visited Tsivilsk. In order to commemorate that event the public gardens were laid out. According to some legends the oaks were planted there in the form of the inscription "E II".

Nowadays we can see many merchant houses in Tsivilsk. The most prominent merchants were the Kurbatovs.

One of the remarkable sights of Tsivilsk is the Tikhvin Convent founded in 1671-1675. It was built by citizens of Tsivilsk to commemorate the Virgin for the miraculous escape of the town from Stenka Rasin.

Today Tsivilsk is an administrative and economical centre of the Tsivilsk district. There are two secondary schools, two boarding schools, a hospital, an art school and music school here.

Mariinsky Posad is a small town with population of 11,000 people. In 1856 local people of the ancient settlement Sundyr and neighboring villages applied for their transformation into a Posad (settlement), and asked to name it in honour of the Empress Maria Alexandrovna. So the town of Mariinsky Posad appeared. It is situated on two small rivers, the Maly and Bolshoi Sundyr, on the right bank of the Volga, 35km away from Cheboksary. Before the revolution Mariinsky Posad developed as the centre of timber and corn trade.

Nowadays the central part of Mariinsky Posad is represented by wooden 1-2 storey buildings. There are some architectural monuments there: several merchant houses, the ensemble of the Kazan Church, the Trinity Church. There are three secondary schools, three art and music schools, a vocational school, four libraries, and the Museum of Local Lore.

Yadrin is a town with population of 11,000 people. It is situated in the north-western part of the republic, 79km away from Cheboksary, on the bank of the Sura River. It was founded in 1590 as a military outpost in the eastern outskirts of the Russian state. The first inhabitants were military men; in the first half of the 17^th century 195 people lived in the town. At the beginning of the 18^th century Yadrin lost its military importance. The main occupation of the inhabitants was farming, trade and handicrafts.

The architectural image of the town is represented by wooden one-storey buildings and modern 2-5 storey houses. Among the most remarkable buildings are stone buildings of the 19^th century, the buildings of the district library and archive, the Trinity Church.

The museum of cosmonautics

On the 14^th of December in 1972 in the village of Shorshely, the homeland of Nikolayev Andrian Grigorievich, a museum opened in the building of a former wooden church.

It has a collection of documents and exhibits, which are connected with life and activity of the first cosmonauts.

On the 12^th of April 1961 the first spaceship with a man on board Vostok 1 launched into space. In August 1962 there was the 1^st group flight of 2 spaceships, piloted by A.G. Nikolayev, from Chuvashia and P. R. Popovich from the Ukraine. Nikolayev spent 95 hours in space, made 64 circuits around the Earth. His second flight was on board the spaceship Soyuz 9.

The exposition of the central hall of the museum shows the development of the space industry. Here you can see pages from the board register of the spaceship Vostok 3 dating August 1962. In the central part of the hall there is a landing device of the spaceship Vostok 3. A radio station and a medicine chest, used by spacemen during the flight are also represented in this hall.

On a separate display board there are documents, personal things, and a copy of the diploma of the Military-Air Engineering Academy named after Zhukovsky, the diploma of a candidate of technical sciences, many presents given to A.G. Nikolayev during his foreign trips.

In 1999 Andrian Grigorievich visited his native village Shorshely where he took part in the ceremony of laying the first stone of a new building of the museum. President Nikolai Fyodorov who was among the guests promised that it would be built in a short period. In 2001 a solemn opening ceremony of a new museum complex took place. A. Nikolayev accompanied by some other Russian spacemen arrived at the ceremony. The new building with blue windows - illuminators reminds a snow-white ship from another planet. In the new building there is enough space for all the exhibits of the museum.

In the museum you’ll be able to see a planetarium as well as the astronomy class with unique equipment where pupils from all parts of Chuvashia are taught astronomy.

The Shorshely museum is famous not only for the name of Nikolayev. Here you can find information about many spacemen from those who started exploring space to representatives of younger generations. The museum has exhibits devoted to the spacemen from Alatyr - Musa Manarov and Nikolai Budarin.

The Shorshely museum is visited by people from all over Chuvashia. It has a vast collection of exhibits showing heroic exploration of space by the Chuvash people. No one knows how many future space heroes are among boys and girls who come to see the displays of the museum today.