A Town Born

On the 29th of July 1586 the construction of the Tyumen burg was started that became the first Russian city in Siberia. The founders of the burg, voivodes Vassili Sukin and Ivan Myasnoy, had chosen a territory well-protected by the banks of the Tura and Tyumenka rivers.

The first inhabitants of the burg were strelets and Cossaks. They got the place encircled with log walls, built a wooden church of the Virgin, an office, some houses, and ration barns.

First, the burg was intended as an outpost, but in 1593 a wooden-built town was found in its place. Initially, all the buildings were confined within the Kremlin territory, which was surrounded by log-cut walls with loop-holes and watchtowers. The Kremlin incorporated a voivode’s house, the Christmas and Nikolas churches, a treasury, grain barns, salt stores, a vine cellar, a jail and some other premises.

Due to a favorable geographical location in between ancient trade roots from Europe to Asia, the Tyumen burg became a start-point for developing virgin territories eastwards and northwards, and soon was developed into an important center of trans-continental trade. This was boosted even further through the Tsar’s Decree on tax-free transactions for Bukhara and Nogay merchants. At the end of the XVIth century the Bukhrara settlement was founded near the burg across the Tura river.

In 1601 the Tyumen Carrying (Dray) was organized, which was the first in Siberia. Soon the Dray settlement was founded. By the beginning of the XVIIth century there were 570 cort-yards and 1700 inhabitants in Tyumen.

In 1616 near the Dray settlement a Transfiguration male monastery was built by an elder monk Niphont Kazanski. Some time earlier a monastery for virgine females and the Ilia church were founded on the bank of the Tura river.

During the whole XVIIth century the town had been re-novated. Several times the Tyumen Kremlin was built anew after devastated fires in 1620, in 1687, and in 1695.

The XVII century was manifested by appearance of stone buildings in Tyumen. In 1700 on the bank of the Tura river stone-made treasury storehouses were built with the Annunciation church over them. In 1715, on the territory of the Transfiguration monastery the Trinity cathedral was completed that gave a new name to the monastery. Here also were built the church of St. Peter and St. Paul, and the abbot’s premises. Construction of the Trinity monastery was supervised by the Siberian metropolitan Philopheum Leshinski. In 1717 the church of the Forty Martyrs was built. Adjacent to it was a two-story tower, where Philopheum Leshinski lived till his death as he became a monk. The Siberian metropolitan bequeathed to burry him at the entrance to the Trinity monastery, so that ‘passers by should trample on his remains’.