Sightseeing tour of the village of Old Town, Temnikovsky district

The village of Old Town is the oldest Russian settlement in Mordovia. It was here that the first city of Temnikov was located, moved by decree of Grand Duchess Elena Glinskaya (mother of John the Terrible) in 1536 to a new location. The former city turned into a village with a population of 1000-1500 people. At the end of the XVI century, the village was partially granted to Tatar servants of the Murzas, including I. Emashev (1575), I. Enaleev (1595) and others. Since the end of the XVII century, Muslim landowners either adopted Orthodoxy, or migrated, having lost their estates. There is no news about the earliest temples. In 1618, a wooden church in the name of the Great Martyr Paraskeva was registered in the village; presumably in 1697 it burned down, and a new wooden church was built instead of it at the same time, consecrated in the name of St. Nicholas, Archbishop of Myra. In 1820, it also burned down. The last stone St. Nicholas Church with the chapel of the Great Martyr Paraskeva was built in 1840 at the expense of parishioners in the classicism style. Its architectural features were clearly underestimated by contemporaries; they wrote about it that it "has nothing remarkable inside or outside." In fact, the temple, which was placed under state protection in the 1970s as an architectural monument of republican significance, is distinguished by its strict forms and grandeur. During the years of Soviet power, the bell tower was lost. Currently, the church returned to the parish has been rededicated in honor of the Great Martyr Paraskeva. Restoration work is underway.