Monasteries in Pereslavl-Zalessky as points of attraction and communication

Abstract

The article dwells on the description of the field research which was conducted in January 2021 in the city of Pereslavl-Zalessky, Yaroslavl region, within the framework of the project “The People’s History of Russia: Crossroads of Local Civilizations”. The work contains the narratives about the monasteries of the city during the Soviet era and in the present time. In the USSR, monasteries used to be repurposed as state-run institutions (a warehouse, a tourist office, a museum, etc.). At the same time, these territories were developed in various ways by local residents, for example, one of those became a children’s playground. Currently four of the five monasteries (Feodorovsky, Danilovsky, Nikitsky, Nikolsky) have been restituted to the Russian Orthodox Church and are functioning. They act as points of attraction for both locals and tourists and pilgrims.