Island-city. End of an era. Renaissance.

Sviyazhsk was founded as a fortress in 1551 by Tsar Ivan the Terrible. It was here that the army that later captured the Kazan Khanate was formed. Later it was a merchant city. Also on the island at different times there were several monasteries. During the Soviet era, the monasteries were closed, in one of them a prison for political prisoners was organized, and later - a psychiatric clinic. There was also a boarding school for the feeble-minded on the island. With the collapse of the USSR, the clinic was closed, the boarding school was disbanded. The island was in disrepair. But in 2010 they decided to make a tourism center here. Active reconstruction began. I wanted to capture at least the rest of the former island. The life that will never be here again. Due to my age, I did not have time to capture those dashing days of the Soviet era, but I managed to capture the quiet life of Sviyazhsk. Here is a fragment of the project that I filmed for several years.