Tarusa

Tarusa, central square

Tarusa (Russian: Тару́са) is a town and the administrative center of Tarussky District of Kaluga Oblast, Russia, located on the left bank of the Oka River, 36 kilometers (22 mi) south of Serpukhov, 76 kilometers (47 mi) northeast of Kaluga, and about 140 kilometers (87 mi) south of Moscow. Population: 9,656 (2010 Census preliminary results); 9,893 (2002 Census); 8,795 (1989 Census).

The town of Tarusa is known to have existed since 1246, when it was the capital of one of the Upper Principalities - the Principality of Tarusa (Russian: Тару́сское княжество). The first ruler of the Principality of Tarusa was Grand Duke Jury Mikhailovich, the son of Grand Duke Mikhail Vsevolodovich of Chernigov. Later, the local rulers moved their seats to Meshchovsk and Boryatino, and Tarusa was subjugated by Muscovy in the late 14th century. Tarusa has been used as a stronghold at the southern approaches to Moscow in the 15th-17th centuries. The Soviet authority in Tarusa was established on December 27, 1917. The town’s churches were closed, and a monument to Stalin was erected on the central square. During the Second world war, the German troops approached Tarusa and took it on their way to Moscow. The town was occupied by the Germans between October 24 and December 19, 1941. After that, the town was retaken by the Red Army which heroically crossed the Oka river in winter under the frantic German fire and successfully attacked the German strongholds on the higher bank of Oka.

The name is from that of the Tarusa River, a tributary of the Oka; Tar- is a hydronym base characteristic of regions of ancient Baltic settlement. According to a popular belief, the name derives from Tarusa's geohistorical position as a border town to the adjoining realm of Lithuania situated on the bank of the Oka. Questions about travelers' whereabouts from the other bank were answered with the answer To - Rus!, meaning "This is Russia," eventually becoming the name of the town.

Remnants of the town's fortifications and the town wall can still be seen today in the community park near the city church - the Peter and Paul Cathedral. Tarusa also has another cathedral - the Voskresenskaya church (Efremova street, 1).

Museums and art galleries

Tarusa has a number of popular museums - the Tarusa regional museum of local lore (Friedrich Engels street, 4) and the Museum of the Tsvetaevs family (Rose Luxemburg street, 30). Tarusa also has the flourishing Tarusa City Picture Gallery (Lenin street, 1A), which boasts a rich collection of important Russian artists and arranges interesting exhibitions every month of a year.

A number of famous Russian people attracted by inspirational beauty of the place used to live and create in Tarusa, which was dubbed the Russian Barbison and Parnassus on the river Oka, such as painter Viktor Borisov-Musatov, poet and writer Marina Tsvetaeva, Nobel Prize-nominated writer Konstantin Paustovsky, poet and translator Arkady Steinberg, poet Nikholay Zabolotzky, poet Iosif Brodsky, poet Nadezhda Mandelstam, poet Naum Korzhavin, poet Boris Slutzky, poet Nikolay Panchenko, poet Bella Akhmadulina, writer Galina Manevich, writer Vladimir Zheleznyakov, script writer Galina Arbuzova, writer Boris Balter, writer Vladimir Maximov, translator Victor Golyshev, translator Natalia Smirnova, actor Nikolay Chindaykin, actor Petr Velyaminov, actress Alla Demidova, actress Larisa Danilina, philosopher Evgeny Schiffers, philosopher Alexey Shestopal, crystallographer Georgi Wolf, Austrian photographer Veniamin Kostitsin-Teterin, sculptor Vasili Vatagin, painters Nikolai Krymov, Konstantin Korovin, Veniamin Kostitsin, Vasili Baksheyev, Eduard Steinberg, Platon Obukhov, Boris Sveshnikov, Mikhail Grobman, Mikhail Odnoralov, Boris Steinberg, Jury Zheltov, Stanislav Zhulidov, Vladimir Bashlykov, Boris Messerer, Max Birstein, Irina Starzhenetskaya, Eduard Bragovsky, Elena Utenkova, Victoria Pilipenko, Mikhail Pilipenko, Elena Kalashnikova, Nikolay Gurin, Svetlana Pavlutina, Igor Vulokh and others.

Vasily Polenov's museum

Vasily Polenov's museum is located not far from Tarusa, across from it on the other bank of Oka, in the village of Polenovo. Near the Museum there is the Bekhovo church which Vasily Polenov used to frequent.

“Tarusa Pages”

In 1962, Konstantin Paustovsky fought to publish the famous almanac “Tarusa Pages” (Russian: Тару́сские страницы), which became the only book in the Soviet Union which escaped censorship and offered its pages for various free-thinking and dissident writers. After the book was published, it was declared ideologically injurious and removed from all book-stores and libraries.

Tarusa - dissident town during the Soviet era

During the Soviet period, Tarusa became the place where dissidents and people repressed by the Soviet authorities used to settle, since they were not allowed to live in Moscow, Leningrad and the capitals of all Soviet republics. Tarusa became the home place for such famous dissident figures as Anatoly Marchenko, Larisa Bogoraz, Alexander Ginzburg, Anastasia Tsvetaeva, Ariadna Efron, Alexey Shemetov, Andrey Amalrik, Kronid Lubarsky, Vladimir Osipov, Vladimir Balakhonov, Vladimir Kornilov, Sergey Kovalev, Natalia Stolyarova, Alexander Ugrimov, Konstantin Babitzky, Tatyana Velikanova, Anatoly Futman, Natalia Gorbanevskaya, Felix Svetov, Zoya Krakhmalnikova, Leonard Ternovsky, Lev Kopelev, Vladimir Maximov. The book “Tarusa - 101st kilometer” by Tatyana Melnikova is devoted to the lives and fates of the famous dissidents living in Tarusa.

Quite symbolically, Alexander Solzhenitsyn spent his honeymoon in Tarusa before the war, and used to come to Tarusa after becoming a famous dissident writer and freedom-fighter.

Industry

Tarusa has an Art Ceramics factory, Institute for Space Research branch, Milk factory.

Famous people

• Joerg Duss
• Konstantin Paustovsky
• Marina Tsvetaeva
• Vasily Polenov
• Eduard Steinberg
• Viktor Borisov-Musatov
• Galina Manevich
• Boris Sveshnikov
• Anatoly Marchenko
• Larisa Bogoraz
• Alexander Ginzburg
• Andrey Amalrik
• Kronid Lubarsky
• Sergey Kovalev
• Natalia Gorbanevskaya
• Felix Svetov
• Zoya Krakhmalnikova
• Nadezhda Mandelstam
• Lev Kopelev
• Vladimir Maximov

See also

• Open Russian Festival of Animated Film (held near Tarusa until 2002)
• Russian Music Festival named after Svyatoslav Richter (held near Tarusa since 1995)

External links

• History of Tarusa