The Golden Ring is a symbolic ring of ancient Russian towns situated to the North-East from Moscow. It keeps unique monuments of ancient Russian architecture of the 12-17th centuries: Moscow itself, Sergiev Posad and Alexandrov, Kostroma and Pereslavl-Zalessky, Uglich and Ivanovo, Yaroslavl and Rostov the Great, Suzdal and Vladimir, each of these towns is a real pearl of Russia . Nowadays they are often called 'museums in the open air'. Cathedrals and churches, convents and fine art museums strike by their beauty. A tour of the Golden Ring will give you a wonderful possibility to make acquaintance of the history of ancient Russians towns, their culture and their traditions.

The main cathedral of the Vladimir. it was built in 1158-1160 in order of Andrey Bogolyubsky, the Duke of those times. After city fire of 1185 the cathedral was rebuilt and enlarged by Vsevolod III. The wall paintings were very rich and famous in Russian fields. In the end of XV century Andrey Rublyov participated in the paintings. The bell tower was built much later, in XVIII century, with interesting style of towers.

Vladimir is situated on the bank of Klyaz'ma River. There are wonderful views from the special point near of Uspensky Cathedral. You can see the old part of the city, the river, the bridge crossing the river and the cathedral.

It was the main gate to the city in the previous time. The building works were completed in1164. In the same time it was the center of the fortification buildings and of the main place for the meeting of the foreigners as well as a place where soldiers were gone to the battle. Besides it is a place of triumph, when people came in the glory. For exampe, Alexander Nevsky came to the city in 1252 through Golden Gate.

In XVIII century fortification buildings were partly destroyed and Golden Gate is without walls now that joined it with other towers.
Nowadays there is a tradition for the just married people to go through Golden Gate that symbolizes that they will be happy during whole family life.