Ipatiev Monastery & Kostroma Sloboda
Sixteenth-to-seventeenth-century fortified monastery and adjacent open-air wooden museum
Includes the 1652 Trinity Cathedral and carved eighteenth-century log churches on stilts.
Kostroma & Plyos, Russia
Ideal: 2 daysBest: May–SepPrice: Moderate
In 60 seconds
Kostroma & Plyos in 60 seconds
Further down the upper Volga, Kostroma fans out from its semicircular Susaninskaya Square and eighteenth-century merchant trading arcades toward the white walls of the Ipatiev Monastery on the Kostroma River spit. Seventy kilometres downstream, the tiny hillside town of Plyos tumbles down wooded ravines to a car-free Volga promenade immortalised by landscape painter Isaac Levitan.
Best for
- River
- Architecture
- Art
- Wooden Architecture
- Countryside
Known for
- Ipatiev Monastery & Kostroma Sloboda
- Plyos Volga Embankment & Mount Levitan
- Kostroma Trading Arcades & Fire Watchtower
Skip if
You want a single compact stop rather than two distinct upper-Volga towns.
Your match
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See
Must experience
The things that would make the trip incomplete without them.
Plyos Volga Embankment & Mount Levitan
Three-kilometre riverside walk and hilltop wooden Church of the Resurrection
Follow the cobbled paths up Sobornaya and Levitan hills for wide views of the Volga bend.
Kostroma Trading Arcades & Fire Watchtower
Late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century vaulted market rows and 1827 neoclassical tower
One of Russia's most complete provincial Empire-style civic ensembles.
Beyond the obvious
Hidden gems
Less obvious, rarely queued for, and usually the part people remember.
Isaac Levitan House-Museum, Plyos
1830s riverside merchant house where Levitan spent the summers of 1888–1890
Displays original studies painted along the upper Volga.