Depressive outback. Goose Iron, Ryazan region. Goose-Iron. Ryazan region - attractions. Gus-Zhelezny: photo Barkov House in Kasimov: an ownerless diamond

The city of Gus-Zhelezny is located on a river called “Goose”, which gave it the first part of its name. The second part is due to the rich deposits of iron ore in the urban area. Already in the 18th century, an iron foundry arose here, which developed in subsequent years.

The most famous mining family was the Batashevs, whose founder was the Tula blacksmith Ivan Timofeevich Batashev. It was he who began to build the first factories on the Tulitsa River, after which he developed large enterprises in Medynsky district. All his factories went to his sons, who continued their father's work. For several generations, the Batashevs have continued the work of Ivan Timofeevich. In 1783, the Batashev family became noble. Andrei Batashev builds a luxurious estate for himself and lays the foundation for the Trinity Church, which, despite its impressive size, looks quite slender.

The name of Andrei Rodionovich is mysterious and covered in a veil of many secrets. Due to the fact that his entire estate was surrounded by a thick brick wall with towers, it seemed to the common people that the nobleman had something to hide. It was assumed that behind the seven-meter wall all sorts of atrocities were happening, akin to which probably happened in the palace of Count Dracula. The most common rumor is that A.R. Batashev was a Freemason. Secret rooms were created in the house for his meetings with other members of the order. In addition, he is credited with minting counterfeit money. There is a legend that on the eve of the upcoming inspection, Batashev hastily filled up the hall with his “mint” along with three hundred workers.

The residential village of Gus-Zhelezny arose along with the founding of the first factories. In the 18th century, only iron foundry workers lived here. In 1940, it became the center of the Belkovsky district, which was formed in 1935. The village of Belkovo initially received the status of a regional center because it was here that the road from Moscow to Kasimov passed. By 1960, the district was abolished, and its lands were divided between the Kasimovsky and Tumsky districts. In 1964, Gus-Zhelezny received the status of an urban village, which it remains to this day.

Construction of the temple begins in 1802. The work continued for more than half a century and the final touches were applied to the cathedral only in 1868. According to some unconfirmed information, the Trinity Church was designed by architect V.I. Bazhenov.

This temple was not the first in Gus. Before the construction of the stone cathedral, there was a wooden church here, consecrated in the name of John the Baptist. The shrine burned to the ground in a fire in 1802, immediately after which a two-story stone church was founded. The main financier was Andrei Batashev, but by the last year of his life, 1825, the church building was only ready up to the dome. The bell tower and refectory rooms reached the cornice. Despite the incompleteness, divine services were already taking place in the new cathedral, since three altars on the first floor were consecrated. The first altar is dedicated to Nicholas the Wonderworker (consecrated in 1816), the second to the chief apostles Peter and Paul (consecrated in 1818), and the last altar to the great feast of the Nativity of Christ (consecrated in 1823). After the death of Andrei Rodionovich, work was suspended for several years. In 1847, the heirs of the Batashev family took the construction of the temple into their own hands, and in 1868 a celebration was held to consecrate the main altar - in the name of the Holy Trinity.

The interior decoration of the temple was extremely rich; No less luxurious were the icons and other temple relics. Among the parishioners, the icon of the Virgin Mary, called Bogolyubskaya, was especially revered. This image was donated by the Bogolyubsky Monastery. The miraculous icon was silvered and covered in places with gold. The second church attraction was a silver altar cross with the relics of St. John the Merciful.

When designing the Trinity Church, the author of the project undoubtedly drew his ideas from the architecture of the Middle Ages. The colossal church is built of brick and faced with white stone. The majestic image of the temple combines features of Baroque, classicism and pseudo-Gothic. However, there are not so many baroque elements, or rather, there are none at all, as such. A complex appearance with semicircular projections, beveled edges and niches refers to this architectural style. Classicism is manifested in the calm completion of the cathedral and the clear dome. Pseudo-Gothic motifs are lancet openings, gable pediments on the sides of the octagon, vials and double columns. There is no analogy to the resulting masterpiece!

After the 1917 revolution, the temple was closed. Until that time, it was considered an estate. In the summer of 1948, the church was opened as a general temple. Today, regular services are held in the cathedral. The church can accommodate up to 1200 parishioners.

Address: Ryazan region, Kasimovsky district, town. Gus-Zhelezny

The location for the graveyard was chosen very well, since all the features of the local landscape were taken into account. The architects of the past had an unspoken rule: the temple should be a kind of beacon on land.

Gusevsky, or, as it is also called, “Guzsky” churchyard in the 17th century was decorated with two churches and had a large market place, which, by the way, was founded against the will of the Kasimov ruler. However, his dissatisfaction was in vain - trade in the churchyard flourished. The identity of the financiers of both temples is unknown today. And a lot of money was spent. One of the churches, Transfiguration, was built over 80 years. In addition to it, a church was built here in honor of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker and a small chapel.

The first to attract the eye is the Transfiguration Church, thanks to the huge vertical bell tower, but the earlier building in this strange, stylistically dissonant ensemble is the St. Nicholas Church. It was built in 1771, when classicism was most popular in Russia. Despite the period of construction, the forms of the temple and its volumetric composition, directed upward, demonstrate the Baroque of the 17th century, albeit in an updated interpretation. But the semicircle of colonnades of the northern and southern facades is made in the best traditions of classicism. They are excellently decorated, although the capitals look heavier than in ancient examples.

The second church, Spaso-Preobrazhenskaya, is quite different from the previous one. The grouping of masses here is distributed in a horizontal plane and is burdened by a reduced refectory and limits. The light rotunda rising above the lower tier is distinguished by its beauty and originality of decoration.

Adjacent to the refectory from the west is a three-tier bell tower built in 1829, again Baroque, but in a new stylistic interpretation, almost Rastrelli-esque, which is probably where the opinion was born that its author could be the great Rastrelli. Her exterior is just as brightly individual. First of all, the tiers are plastically richly decorated, columns in the corners, braces, flowerpots, etc. The belfry evokes not only a desire to admire, but also a delight of surprise: on the four cardinal points there are bas-relief figures of saints, probably the fathers of the church, two on each side of the base. In their outlines one can see something European, Romanesque. The fact that such a unique work appeared on Ryazan lands remains a mystery.

Today, the Church of the Transfiguration is operational and liturgies are periodically served there. The Church of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker is inactive. The dilapidated building is not being repaired by anyone, and the “antique” colonnades, like the rest of the walls, are becoming more and more fragile every year.

Address: Ryazan region, Kasimovsky district, village. Pogost (8 km from Gus-Zhelezny)

The famous Andrei Batashev immortalized his name in the memory of descendants, among other things, with his luxurious estate, of which, however, little remains today. The main mansion of the “Nest” is architecturally close to typical urban public buildings of its era. The house is strongly elongated along the longitudinal axis, the decorative elements of the facades are strict and almost devoid of decorative elements. Nowadays, it is practically unremarkable, except perhaps for its size. But Andrei Rodionovich’s contemporaries certainly had a completely different opinion. According to documentary evidence from eyewitnesses, the estate resembled “either a fortress or some kind of medieval castle.” And this is understandable: the house and the adjacent garden were surrounded by a high stone wall, and at the entrance to the dam there was a watchtower with a large iron goose on the spire. It's a gloomy sight, isn't it?

The estate also housed a serf theatre, a menagerie and a poultry house. In the garden, divided into three parts, gazebos and greenhouses were built in which exotic fruits were grown: oranges, peaches and others, uncharacteristic for our latitudes. One of the parts of the park bore the eloquent name “Garden of Horrors”, since it was intended for corporal punishment and, possibly, torture. In addition, there are legends about the existence at that time of a vast underground complex that connected the house with the factory and other buildings. To protect their land and plant A.R. Batashov was allowed to keep a regiment of armed soldiers, so the analogies with a medieval castle are quite logical.

People still have legends about the passions that took place behind the impregnable fortress walls. According to one of them, escaped convicts minted counterfeit coins in the dungeons. Rumors about this illegal occupation reached the government and an investigator was sent to Gus-Zhelezny, upon whose arrival Andrei filled up the entrance to the catacombs, burying alive all the workers who were in the “minting workshop” at that moment. Another legend tells us about the mysterious disappearance of a police officer who arrived at the plant to investigate some matter. Much later, a corpse was discovered in one of the walls. Copper buttons were found on the remains, which suggested that he was a government official. There are other legends, for example, that Batashev led local robbers, or that the Tatar prince, the owner of the lands adjacent to the estate, was killed in the Eagle's Nest... It is now unknown whether any of these stories are true, and if yes, then by how much. Andrei Rodionovich was never convicted and ended his life on his native estate.

Now the estate vaguely resembles idylls in the paintings of old masters. Cows graze peacefully in the park, in the distance rises the silhouette of a church with a stopped tower clock... As if all those horrors that the legends of Gus-Zhelezny tell about did not happen. But if everything was calm here, then where did so many legends come from? As they say, there is no smoke without fire.

Address: Ryazan region, Kasimovsky district, town. Gus-Zhelezny

There are two monuments in Gus-Zhelezny that may be of interest to guests of this small, quiet village. One of them is a monument erected in honor of the founders of the settlement - the Batashev brothers. The memorial stele was installed in 2008 on the main square, near the Cathedral of the Life-Giving Trinity. Its opening was timed to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the founding of the ironworks and the village on the Gus River. Next to it there is a small monument, directly to Batashev. A commemorative inscription is applied to the black marble slab, and it is decorated with a cast-iron rose, which is made with such grace that such material would seem incapable of.

The second monument, dedicated to the valiant defenders of the Motherland who died during the difficult years of the Great Patriotic War, is located not far from the first, still on the same cathedral square. There is a long list on the monument, which contains the names of all the natives of Gus-Zhelezny who gave their lives for the freedom of their families. At the end of the list there are several recent entries that indicate that the search for missing persons continues.

By bus

Since there is no railway station in the village, you can only get here by bus. The railway ends in the city of Kasimov, from which the bus takes half an hour. Capital flights also arrive in Gus-Zhelezny 5 hours after departure from the Shchelkovsky bus station. You can get to the village from Vladimir by direct flight; the bus takes 3 hours and 20 minutes. Ryazan buses arrive in Gus 3 hours after departure.

Trinity Church in Gus-Zhelezny is a giant white-stone, two-height church with an octagonal dome and a bell tower. Perhaps this is the largest of all rural churches in Russia. The temple seats approximately 1200 people. Thrones: Trinity Life-Giving, Nicholas the Wonderworker, Nativity of Christ, Peter and Paul Architectural style: Pseudo-Gothic Year of construction: Between 1802 and 1868. Address: Ryazan region, Kasimovsky district, village. Gus-Zhelezny. 19th century, architect unknown, customer - owner of local factories Andrey Andreevich Batashev.

The cathedral is one of the rare examples of a pseudo-Gothic style, uncharacteristic of Russian architecture. The entire church building refers to a completely different tradition: the closest analogues of this temple are ancient English abbeys. Trinity Cathedral surprisingly faithfully and effectively repeats their outlines with its high dark gray walls with several rows of lancet windows, a pointed bell tower above the entrance, and a round altar.

The cathedral is also striking in that in different weather it looks completely different - sometimes light and elegant, sometimes solid, serious and even frightening.

While we are walking around the cathedral and looking at this unusual architecture, we will get to know the customer of the temple and his father. In those distant times, this land was owned by Andrei Rodionovich Batashov (1731/32-1799) (who loves the horrors of the Past Life - can read more about Andrei Rodionovich here http://hrodgar.livejournal.com/63959.html). Andrei Rodionovich erected a huge factory and estate complex, but at the same time was content with a modest wooden church of John the Baptist, erected not far from his house in 1766, while in neighboring Kasimov merchants with less capital built solid stone churches one after another. The stern owner of Goose was not distinguished by his piety, which gave reason for his neighbors to even suspect him of belonging to Freemasonry. And the common people believed that he had completely sold his soul to the devil.

Andrey Rodionovich Batashov

The Church of the Baptist burned down around 1802. The heir, Andrei Andreevich, nicknamed Cherny, gave orders for the construction of a new stone temple on his father’s estate. Of course, in any case, we cannot exclude the possible role of Andrei Rodionovich as a possible customer of the project.

Batashovsky plant in Gus-Zhelezny

Apparently, Andrei Rodionovich had a difficult relationship with his son Andrei from his first marriage (he was married three times in total and had two sons named Andrei - from his first and second marriage). When Andrei Sr., (Cherny), turned 17-18 years old, he was sent by his father for three years “to gain the knowledge he needed to foreign European states.” Andrei Rodionovich wanted to prepare a worthy successor for himself. But either the son did not live up to his father’s hopes, or their relationship became complicated after his father’s second marriage (which is more likely), but if in the mid-80s. XVIII century Andrei Sr. still lived in Gus, then in the 90s. retired lieutenant Andrei Andreevich Batashev was already far from his father’s house. Together with his family, his wife Pelageya Ivanovna, the daughter of the Tula merchant Ivan Petrovich Luginin, and his young son Peter (1787-?), he lived in the Nizhny Novgorod province, where, on behalf of his father, he managed one of the most remote factories - Ilevsky.

The Batashov estate in Gus-Zhelezny. On the right you can see the dome of the already built Trinity Church.

After the death of his father, an incident helped Andrei Cherny establish himself as the sole heir: on October 26, 1801, the marching synodal archive, where the registers of parishes were kept, burned down. Referring to the lack of documents, the Synod Commission, by its decision of March 20, 1802, recognized Andrei Sr. as the sole heir of Andrei Rodionovich. All of his father’s enormous fortune passed to him: seven iron factories, houses, mills, thousands of lands, dozens of villages and hamlets and more than 10 thousand peasants and craftsmen. All estates were located on the territory of five provinces: Ryazan, Vladimir, Nizhny Novgorod, Tambov and Tula 14.

After the old wooden church burned down, Andrei Cherny, who by this time had already moved to St. Petersburg, immediately gave orders for the construction of a new stone church on his father’s estate, for which he spared no expense. When the church was established, in favor of the parable, the Batashovs “applied 15 quarters of arable land per field and 15 kopecks of hay,” but until 1871. this land was in the possession of Batashov. In 1871 The guardianship of Batashov's heirs exchanged the former church land for new land in the amount of 38 acres - 1,092 soots.

The authorship of the temple project has not yet been precisely established. The Kasimov architect I.S. is also mentioned. Gagin, and, of course, Vasily Ivanovich Bazhenov, who is credited with any buildings that bear the features of “Russian Gothic”. In addition, both Andrei Batashov and Vasily Bazhenov were allegedly Freemasons, and this may explain the use of Gothic motifs. Perhaps the architect is D.A. Gushchin or Bazhenov’s student Ivan Tamansky. The Vladimir State Archive contains information only that the temple was built by a “famous architect,” but his name is not given. It is also known that there is no analogy to this temple. Trinity Church was considered the estate church of the Russian Orthodox Church.

The Trinity Church is built of red brick, faced with white limestone and belongs to the type of two-story refectory churches. Its layout is unique (it’s a pity, I couldn’t find an image of the temple’s layout anywhere). The height of the temple is 55 meters, the bell tower is 70.

Trinity Church is all directed upwards. The huge bell tower with a clock also corresponds to the scale of the cathedral.

The temple combines features of Baroque, classicism and pseudo-Gothic. The authors of “Sights” (“Russian Sites” - the printed organ of the Moscow Society of History and Russian Antiquities. Published in Russian) write that “from the Baroque comes its complex appearance with semicircular protrusions, beveled edges, niches.” From the classics - a calm completion, a clear dome in shape, from the pseudo-gothic - lancet openings, gable pediments on the edges of the octagon, double columns, vials.

Looking at the main part of the building, it is quite possible to get an idea of ​​what architectural ideals inspired both the customer and the author of the project. They lay in the area of ​​medieval castle architecture. Trinity Church gives just such an impression. In the second half of the 18th century, such romantic images were loved. But in Trinity Church all this has the character of some kind of modernization. Apparently, the crowning parts of the building (the spire of the bell tower, the spire and the phials of the octagon) were damaged and were replaced by insignificant domes. The proposed graphic reconstruction (S.V. Chugunov) immediately returns the monument to its true image.

Under Andrei Andreevich Barashov, the temple was just founded (1802), but after the death of the customer (1825) it was only completed to the dome. The refectory and bell tower extend to the cornice. Although services were already held in the temple, it was finally completed in 1847-1868.

Despite the fact that work was suspended in 1825, almost everything was completed on the lower floor; three altars were consecrated: in the name of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker (consecrated in 1816), in the name of the Chief Apostles Peter and Paul (consecrated 1818) and in the name of the Nativity of Christ (consecrated in 1823)

Cast iron stove at the entrance to the temple. Pay attention to the images of geese.

In 1847, with funds from the Batashov heirs and the factory workers, work was resumed, and the main Trinity altar was consecrated only in 1868.

The interior of the temple was rich. Everyone who at least once visited the temple remembered this.

Iconostasis of the second floor of the Trinity Church. Photos of the early 20th century

This is what the place looks like now

There were icons and other shrines. Particularly revered was the icon of the Mother of God of Bogolyubskaya, which was donated by the Bogolyubsky Monastery in memory of the fact that the factory workers in 1865 eagerly received this miraculous image on the occasion of the illness that was raging at that time. The chasuble on the icon was silver-gilded, worth 13,000 rubles. Another shrine is a small silver altar cross, into which particles of the relics of St. John the Merciful were placed.
I was not allowed to take photographs in the temple, so the photos were taken from the Internet.

In 1921, by resolution of the Council of People's Commissars, valuables were confiscated from the temple, and in 1932 it was closed. Only the parishioners managed to buy the cross.

On January 13, 1935, the People's Commissariat of Finance informs the Commission on Religious Issues under the Presidium of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee that the complaint of the believers of the village. Gus-Zhelezny of the Melenkovsky district (now Ryazan region) was satisfied - the district finance department was asked to re-calculate local taxes. The chairman of the church council, Ustyuzhina, went to the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, where she was allowed to serve “galaly”, after which on October 28 the local priest held a service in front of a large crowd of people. During the service, the chairman of the village council came in 4 times demanding that the service be stopped. After the service, GPU officers were already waiting for the priest and Ustyuzhina at the village council, interrogated them and left them there overnight under arrest. On the 29th, having received a refusal to offer to hand over the keys, they took both to Melenki: Ustyuzhina was taken by car, and the priest was driven on foot, 50 miles!

Under Soviet rule, the temple was used for household needs, warehouses were located in it, and kerosene was sold under the bell tower - for this purpose, a tank was even built inside the base of the bell tower.

At a meeting of the Council for the Affairs of the Russian Orthodox Church under the Council of Ministers of the USSR on June 25, 1948, the question arose about opening a church in the village. Goose-Iron. The GARO funds preserved a standard agreement, an inventory list and questionnaires on the transfer of the temple for the use of the parish of the Russian Orthodox Church.

Services take place in the lower church. As for the emergency condition, the wooden structures in the upper buildings have rotted. Recovery is progressing, but slowly. In the 50s, the church burned due to a lightning strike.

The toponymic dictionary of Evgeniy Pospelov states that the name of the settlement Gus comes from the river of the same name. For toponymy - the science of the origin of names - this is a common thing. Rivers similar to Goose gave their names to Moscow, Samara, Tomsk and others. But where the Gus River got its name is a big question. The traditional association with poultry sounds, but looks unconvincing, because Goose is kept company by rivers that do not have such clear names. In the Ryazan region there are nearly nine hundred rivers and rivulets, and along with the Goose, Unzha, Vorsha, Kishnya, Solotcha, Narma, Kad, Ushna, Tolpega, Niverga, Kolp flow, familiar to the ears of Pra and Oka. The vast majority are distinguished by their longevity - rivers outlive peoples and civilizations, going back to the pre-Slavic past. It is known that a thousand years ago, before the arrival of the Slavs, Finno-Ugric peoples lived here on earth, their current descendants - the Mordovians - live next door. Mordovians are not united - they are two nationalities - Moksha and Erzya. Interestingly, according to one of the scientific interpretations of the name of the city of Ryazan, there is a simple rearrangement of syllables from the old Erzyan - this happens often in the language.

Logic dictates that the roots of the name Goose are hidden in the Mordovian language, where a similar-sounding “kuz” is found, and in the Finnish language “kuusi”, both of which are translated as “spruce”. This argument is also weighty because from time immemorial names have been given based on the uniqueness of the place. A taxi to Dubrovka will undoubtedly take you to an oak grove, which is surrounded by traditional forest. Most of Meshchera is occupied by pine forests and birch thickets in burnt areas, clearings and swamps, because the soil here is sand, and only pine can tolerate such hungry conditions. But in the east of the Ryazan region, as you approach Gus and Kasimov, the soil becomes richer, and it’s easy to notice - from a car, before reaching Gus-Zhelezny, light pine forests give way to dense pine-spruce forests. By the way, Ramenskoe near Moscow apparently comes from the word ramen - this is a spruce forest. So the names of the tourist center “Yolochka”, Ramensky and Goose are the same root, only in different languages.

If you move further away from the Goose into the forest and come across a suitable clearing, it is quite possible that you will find ditches the size of a man. A hundred years ago, ore miners lived in these places and dug holes and ditches - “pipes” - along the banks of lakes and rivers, and even in the forest. The “pipers” mined swamp ore, from which they made iron. That's why they called the goose the Iron Goose. Looking for Meshchera deposits on a map is a futile task; geologists are not interested in iron-poor bog ore. The same could not be said about the domniks - they didn’t know anything better, and the teams of “pipe makers” worked here until the 18th century. Brown iron ore is easy to recognize when you meet it - the banks of Goose, Pra and Narma are completely covered in red-red spots. If you dig deeper, then four meters into the ground there are ore layers 20-30 centimeters thick. Ore from a birch or aspen forest was more valuable, iron from it was more pliable, but ore from a spruce forest was harder and stronger. It has been possible to get more and more ore since the days of the Meshchera reservoirs. They searched with an iron pole - a “rod”, and got them out with long-handled scoops. The ore was taken in August, dried, roasted and transported to smelt until October. The ore was boiled in a furnace on charcoal, while bellows were manually inflated in its lower hole for a constant flow of air. This is how they made strong iron, and the blacksmiths forged axes, nails, locks, stirrups and many other useful things from it.

The German traveler Peter Simon Pallas once looked into these places; in his diary dated August 1, 1768, he writes that behind the village and the Chaura river “the old limestone with shells appears again,” “we finally stopped at the village of Mishkina, having crossed the Sintur river, flowing with the above into the Gus River.” “An iron plant with a high blast furnace was built here, owned by the Tula merchant Balashov, where iron ore is brought from the Oka.” This is how Pallas’s small Goose is mentioned in “Travels through Various Provinces of the Russian Empire.”

Although the local swamp ore was poor, it made the nobles Andrei and Ivan Rodionovich Batashev fabulously rich. In 1758, the brothers acquired vast lands in the vicinity of the Verkutsy churchyard in Vladimir district, built a pond near the Gus River and erected an iron foundry nearby. The first to come out into the world was their grandfather - the Tula blacksmith Ivan Timofeevich Batashev, who in the era of Peter the Great served as manager of Nikita Demidov, the founder of the dynasty of Tula gunsmiths. Cannons and cannonballs were supplied from the blacksmith's factories to supply the Russian army. The metallurgy of the Batashevs reached the Vladimir, Kaluga, Nizhny Novgorod, Ryazan, Tambov and Tula provinces. Within the Melenkovsky district, on the Gus River, two empires were formed - glass and iron. In the upper reaches of the river, the Maltsev merchants created a glass production center, while downstream the Batashevs settled and became the kings of the metallurgical kingdom in Gus-Zhelezny. For about a century and a half, two Geese were listed as belonging to the Vladimir region, but in the 20th century, after a series of administrative and territorial reforms, Gus-Zhelezny turned out to belong to Ryazan.

The Batashev brothers built their residence in Gus exactly like a medieval one. Behind a powerful red brick fence with turrets and loopholes for firing muskets, a two-story house-palace and a theater were built, peaches and pineapples were grown in greenhouses, there was a park, and quarters for guards and servants. The brothers used their power to the full: it is known that the Batashevs once stole an entire village from an intractable owner who did not want to sell it. In one night, all the huts were dismantled and transported to the land of the Batashevs, armed servants also herded the peasants here, and in the place of the manor’s house and village it ended up being a plowed field. Self-will reached such extremes that it gave rise to a legend that the Batashevs’ house was built exactly on the border of the Vladimir and Ryazan lands, therefore, when inspectors, for example, from Vladimir, came in response to numerous complaints, the brothers went to the Ryazan side, and when they came from Ryazan, they hid from Law on Vladimirskaya.

In the meantime, the management was playing around, up to a thousand peasants were working for it, and they were doing it for mere pennies. There is a document: “Inventory and assessment of the movable and immovable estate of the cornet Grigory Martynov, son of Svishchev, located in the Kasimov district in the village of Borki. Committed on May 17, 1784... There are peasants in the yard: Pimen, whose price is three rubles, Moses, whose price is three rubles. Pimen has a wife, Anna Afanasyevna, whose decrepitude deserves no price. They have an illegitimate adopted son, raised by them Korney through his godfather Mikheev, who is worth ten rubles. Moses has a wife, Afrosinya, whose price is four rubles. The daughter is a girl Maria, whose price is one ruble. The hut is a black pine forest with seventeen crowns, dilapidated, with four fiberglass windows, covered with shingles. The clay oven costs only two rubles and fifty kopecks. The front canopy is dilapidated and costs ten kopecks. In the courtyard there is a pine bathhouse with thirteen crowns, covered with straw, costing one ruble.” In the Batashev workshops, such Pimens and Moses worked hard, whose price was fifty dollars more than a clay stove. Andrei Batashev remained in history as an extremely cruel person. It is no coincidence that a legend has survived to this day, according to which Batashev, having learned about the upcoming inspection, destroyed the evidence by opening the floodgate and flooding the underground workshops, while up to a hundred peasants were minting counterfeit money for him.

Batashev’s entrepreneurial spirit attracted the attention of the producers of a project on the REN-TV channel about the mysticism and mysteries of civilization. Television people, discussing the topic of immortality and life extension, put Batashev on a par with Chinese centenarians and ancient Sumerians. They drew attention to the Masonic column, which was installed in the local cemetery in the village of Gus-Zhelezny. Next to the column is the grave of Andrei Batashev. The author of books on the history of alchemy, Andrei Fomin-Shakhov, says that when the grave was opened in the 1980s, it turned out to be empty. The disappearance of the landowner is allegedly associated with immortality, and his cruelty towards the serfs is associated with a secret that he carefully hid. The editors of the “Race of Immortals” program suspect what exactly Batashev was doing in the underground workshops.

The hard-working Gusevites were tormented by more than one generation of Batashevs. The factories were working, but the pay for labor was extremely unstable - sometimes the wait for a salary could reach three months. When patience ran out, the people's anger made itself felt - they went to the factory. True, walking for money was, as a rule, fruitless. The grandson of Andrei Batashev - Emmanuel Ivanovich - turned out to be a worthy descendant of his grandfather. Under him, production volumes grew and equipment was updated. It was at the factories of Emmanuel Batashev that they launched the first regenerative puddling furnace in Russia with two working spaces. True, it was under him that the plant came into operation. In 1904, the demand for pig iron fell sharply, military orders were reduced, and iron ore reserves on the banks of the Goose were depleted. Soon the owner fell ill and died. The last owner of the estate in Gus-Zhelezny was Emmanuel’s widow, Zinaida Vladimirovna Batasheva. In 1918, all her property was confiscated by the Soviet government. The 75-year-old woman was shot on November 16, 1918. The verdict of the revolutionary tribunal read: “For active and passive action against Soviet power.” In 1931, they even dealt with the dead Batashevs, opening their family crypt. Thus ended the rule of the Batashevs in Gus, which lasted exactly 160 years. Today, a children’s boarding school is located in the rather shabby Batashev palace. A red brick wall leads into the old park - there are centuries-old linden trees and paths trodden by local and visiting pedestrians. The spirit of that time captured even the children's art house that joined the place. Legends also remain in Gus-Zhelezny. They talk about underground passages that are supposedly located inside the old estate-fortress. The romance of these places is unique. And you can feel it when you find yourself face to face with the Trinity Cathedral. It was erected by order of Andrei Andreevich Batashev, and it took 66 years to build - from 1802 to 1868. It is believed that the author of the cathedral project was the famous architect Vasily Bazhenov, the builder of the Pashkov House in Moscow. The church smells of the Middle Ages - people come to look at the Gothic temple from the most distant corners of Russia. From Ryazan to Gus it is 138 kilometers, along the road to Kasimov through Klepiki and Tuma. From Moscow you can get here along the Yegoryevskoye Highway. From Gus there is a road to Lubyaniki, from where few people know the walking route to Brykin Bor through the Oka Biosphere Reserve.

The story about the history of Kasimov, its industrial heritage and investment attractiveness cannot but be supplemented with material about the distillery...

The village of Gus-Zhelezny is one of the most mysterious settlements in the Ryazan region. This urban-type village in the Kasimovsky district is located on the Gus River. At this place in the 17th century. there was the village of Verkutets (Vekutets, Verkuts), which was owned by the landowner Al. Iv. Surov (or Suvorov). Name: Verkutets, explained as follows: “ver” is Erzya or Finno-Ugric “forest”; “kut” - Russian, Ukrainian - “angle”; “ets” is a Russian (diminutive) suffix, in general - “forest corner” (analogous to the modern city of Vorkuta). The village had 50 houses with 241 peasants and their families. The area at that time was forested, the land was unfavorable and the population lived off hunting, fishing and all the generous gifts of nature.

In May 1758, these lands were purchased from the widow of Captain Suvorov by Tula arms manufacturers, brothers Ivan and Andrei Batashev. In the documents of the general survey of 1775-1781. reported: “S. Verkutets, now Gusevsky Plant." The Batashevs founded an iron foundry near the river, where they produced sheet iron, artillery pieces, axes, dishes, and nails.

In 1758, the Batashovs began to build a dam 230 fathoms long from hewn stone at the narrowing of the valley of the Gus River. A reservoir was formed among the pine forest - Lake Gusskoye or Kolp. The water pressure created by the dam with sluices moved the factory mechanisms. Near the eastern edge of the dam, the Batashovs built an estate, a factory office, and greenhouses. There was also a bazaar, shops, and houses of the wealthy part of the population.

The founder of the Batashov dynasty was the Tula gunsmith Ivan Timofeevich Batashov (Batashev), who died in 1743. The iron-making industrial empire reached its greatest prosperity under the grandchildren of Ivan Timofeevich, Ivan and Andrei Rodionovich. In terms of industrial iron production, the Batashovs were third in Russia, second only to the Demidovs and Yakovlevs (and ahead of the Mosolovs).

The Batashovs worked for the armament of the army, producing cannonballs, cannons, bombs, anchors, and guns for the fleet according to government orders, providing for the sovereign’s army during the Russian-Turkish wars, the partitions of Poland, and even the Pugachev rebellion. They also produced civilian products - Batashevsky cast iron was considered the highest quality in Europe - and did not bypass Moscow. Cast iron sculptures of the Arc de Triomphe in honor of 1812, Moscow fountains (two have survived - on Teatralnaya Square and near the building of the Academy of Sciences on Bolshaya Kaluzhskaya), trellises of the Kremlin gardens and even a chariot with horses on the pediment of the Bolshoi Theater - all this was made at the Batashev factories.

Art casting from Batashevsky factories. Late 19th - early 20th century.

At the end of the 19th - beginning of the 20th centuries. the settlement was often referred to as Gus, or Gus Batashevsky. In 1905, the plant ceased to exist for natural reasons - iron ore reserves were depleted.

Before the First World War, the village of Gus had up to 3.5 thousand inhabitants, a shopping center, a long-dormant ironworks, a postal and telegraph office serving 45 settlements in the Pogostinsky volost of the Kasimovsky district.

In Soviet times, the settlement at the metallurgical plant was named Gus-Zhelezny. Almost nothing has remained of the former greatness of one of the outstanding monuments of Russia's industrial heritage. During the spring flood of 1923, water from the overflowing lake-reservoir broke through the sluices and left. Now there is a dam on a dry place along which a highway is laid.

The village of Gus-Zhelezny is probably the most “Meshchersky” village in the Ryazan region. It is surrounded by coniferous and mixed forests, in which many mushrooms and berries grow. The local food processing plant has its own mushroom factories and points for receiving and processing forest products. In the recent past, Gusev craftsmen made river boats called “geese”.

The population of the village is about 3 thousand people. Gus-Zhelezny could not reach either the status of a city or the status of a regional center, moving several times between the Vladimir, Moscow and Ryazan regions.

In the village there is a monument to fellow countrymen who died during the Great Patriotic War.

Gus-Zhelezny is distinguished from hundreds of similar settlements by a Gothic cathedral of incredible size, which is why I looked into these parts.