page_title: Severodvinsk
section_title: Pre-20th century
hierarchical_section_title: Severodvinsk / History / Pre-20th century
context_page_description: Severodvinsk is a city in the north of Arkhangelsk Oblast, Russia, located in the delta of the Northern Dvina River, 35 kilometers west of Arkhangelsk, the administrative center of the oblast. As of the 2010 Census, the population was 192,353. Due to the presence of important military shipyards, Severodvinsk is an access restricted town for foreign citizens. A special permit is required.
  It was previously known as Sudostroy, Molotovsk.
context_section_description: Vikings explored the territories around the North Dvina River - part of Bjarmaland - at the start of the second millennium. British and Norman ships came to these places for mining, fur and fishing before the 13th century, but later the climate became colder and access to the northern seas became closed.
  The historical records first mention the settlement on the site of modern Severodvinsk in 1419, when the Swedes sailed into the bay and burnt down the Nikolo-Korelsky Monastery that stood by the shore during the Swedish–Novgorodian Wars. Tradition states that Saint Euphemius, an Orthodox missionary in Karelia, founded this monastery. The abbey stood in ruins until 1471, when two sons of Marfa Boretskaya died in a vicious storm; their bodies were recovered on the beach near the monastery twelve days later. At the urging of Boretskaya, the monastery was restored and her sons were buried there.
  On August 24, 1553, a ship of Richard Chancellor reached the salt-mining settlement of Nyonoksa, which is still famous for its traditional wooden architecture. The British sailors visited the Nikolo-Korelsky Monastery, where they were surprised to find a community of "sailors in soutanes (cassocks)" and a pier large enough to accommodate several ships. The main church of this extraordinary establishment was dedicated to Saint Nicholas, the holy patron of sailors; hence, the whole White Sea became known in 16th-century English maps as "St. Nicholas Bay". In late 1613, during the Time of Troubles in Russia, Polish-Lithuanian vagabonds, the Lisowczycy, captured and looted Severodvinsk with the monastery.
  The Nikolo-Korelsky Monastery flourished after the establishment of the Muscovy Company, as the bulk of their trade passed through the local harbor. In August 1618 the harbour was visited by John Tradescant the elder, who conducted a survey of an island situated opposite the monastery. This island became known to the British as "Rose Island", because it was there that Tradescant found an exceedingly rare plant which he named "Rosa moscovita" and brought back to London.
  The surviving buildings of the monastery were constructed at the close of the Muscovite period. The five-domed cathedral of St. Nicholas was built between 1670 and 1674, preceded by the Assumption church (1664–1667), to which it is joined by a gallery. Several decades later, the walls and towers were built of timber; the Soviets transported the best-preserved of these towers to Kolomenskoye, Moscow, where it still remains.
caption: View of the Nikolo-Korelsky Monastery in the early 20th century
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