The ancient village of Nikologory, reminiscent of a small town in its layout and size, is located to the southwest of Vyazniki. In the very center of the village, on the right bank of the Pogostovka (Penukha) River, there is a large hill on which a high tent-roofed bell tower is erected above a gently rising long market square. It was this hill that gave the settlement its name, which in some old sources has an extremely unique form, "Mountain Nikologorsky Stan". Nikologorsky Pogost arose on this site, presumably no later than the 16th century. In the late 1600s, its lands, which belonged to the Yaropolch volost, were donated by Tsar Vasily Shuisky to Prince Fyodor Ivanovich Mstislavsky for the "Moscow state of siege". The volost was traditionally famous for growing and processing flax, standing out in this industry among other northeastern lands. Since the 18th century, fairs have been held in the village twice a year. The first flax spinning mill of the peasant Serin appeared in 1827.
The first known mention of the Church of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker "in the churchyard on the mountains" dates back to 1628.
In the late 17th – early 18th centuries, the Nikologorsk churchyard became an increasingly prominent trade center. In 1714, a stone Nikolskaya Church was erected on the site of the wooden one. At the same time, the wooden Church of the Nativity of Christ was rebuilt.
By the mid-18th century, the local peasantry had become so strong that in 1763, instead of the previous one, a new large stone Church of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker was built at the expense of parishioners in forms oriented towards the traditions of the 17th century, characteristic of the provincial line in the architecture of this region (the church was heavily destroyed in the 20th century and only the refectory survived).
Economic growth contributed to the further development of the central temple complex of Nikologor; in the late 18th century, two more of its main structures were built of brick. By 1790, the Church of the Nativity of Christ was built in expressive Baroque forms, and a more original and even unique structure, oriented towards the traditions of the 17th century, was an extremely high octagonal bell tower, crowned with a pointed tent with three rows of domes, erected between the two churches and pushed out onto the edge of the hill by 1790. The bell tower, which had almost completely survived by the beginning of the 20th century, became the main architectural dominant not only of Nikologory, but of the entire area.
Translated by Google •
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