Visited Sviyazhsk in August 2017 just 1 day before Irina Bokova also visited this site in order to personally hand over UNESCO certificate. For this occasion on the road from Kazan airport there were celebrative flags and posters.

We visited Sviyazhsk as half-day tour on car from Kazan. The place is now extremely touristy and visited by the group hoards.

This legendary city was founded in 1551 by Ivan the Terrible as an outpost to attack and capture Kazan. The wooden Kremlin was constructed in 4 weeks with the wood transported 700 km through river from Uglich. In 1 year Kazan was seized and included into the growing Moscovite kingdom. Sviyazhsk became quite big military base and city.

In 1918 Sviyazhsk became famous again when Leon Trotsky personally headed Red army in its fight against the White Guard ruling in Kazan. In this dark period, he ordered to death each tenth soldier from the corps that earlier surrendered Kazan (punishment used only during Roman Empire times).

In 1957 after construction of Kuibyshev reservoir Sviyazhsk became an island. Only in 2008 a road dumb was completing facilitating access to the site. Starting from 2000s massive restoration and reconstruction program was initiated by Tatarstan authorities and WHS application after several years finally succeeded in 2017 (but narrowing to the Assumption Cathedral and Monastery only).

The island is a place for pleasant walk with many restored churches and well maintained civil buildings. Apart from the Assumption Cathedral, the main attraction is another monastery with wooden Trinity church dating back to 16th century.

Unfortunately the Assumption Cathedral was closed due to restoration works (and preparations for I.Bokova visit), but it is possible to walk around the monastery compound, which in overall looks very pleasant. The Cathedral was built by Postnik Yakovlev, one of the authors of St. Basil Cathedral in Moscow.

Museum of civil war (assumed place where Leon Trotsky stayed during his days in Sviyazhsk) is also worth visiting.

In overall, I liked the overall impression of the site, and will be planning to come back when the Cathedral frescos are open for the visit.