The village of Staraya Sloboda has been a palace village since time immemorial, belonging to the grand ducal court. Since the times of the Pereyaslavl-Zalessky Principality, the summer residence of the Russian grand dukes was located here. The grand ducal estate called Aleksandrova Sloboda included: a large wooden tower palace, a wooden church, a large stable and coach house, as well as other outbuildings.
The estate was extremely conveniently located: from it, roads led to Pereyaslavl-Zalessky, and to Dmitrov, and to Moscow, and to Suzdal and Vladimir. Since the center of this land was Pereyaslavl-Zalessky, all the Pereyaslavl princes, including the Grand Duke Alexander Nevsky, stayed in the estate of Aleksandrova Sloboda.
The foundation of the estate and the church is assumed to be in the second half of the 12th century. Presumably, the original wooden church was consecrated in the name of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker.
The local estate lost its main significance at the beginning of the 16th century, when in December 1513 the royal - grand ducal estate moved to New Alexandrova Sloboda, on the site of which now stands the Alexandrovsky Assumption Convent. The palace village of Old Sloboda remained in its former place.
In the summer of 1689, the village found itself in the center of events associated with the maneuvers of the so-called toy troops, which were conducted here by the young Tsar Peter Alexeevich and the English General Patrick Gordon with the Preobrazhensky and Semenovsky regiments. It was on his instructions that a church side-chapel was built in honor of the father-in-law of the heavenly patron of his brother John. And then from 1696 to 1698, a church was erected in honor of the Icon of the Kazan Mother of God. The construction of the temple was supervised by Peter I's confessor Feofan. In later years, the empress Catherine the Great passed through Staraya Sloboda.
Translated by Google •
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