Chertovo ancient settlement in Yelabuga

Chertovo ancient settlement in Yelabuga is the remains of an ancient fortified settlement located on the right bank of the Kama River, near the southern outskirts of the city. In the second half of the first millennium one of the Finno-Ugric tribes lived here, then the monument of ancient architecture was destroyed, and for centuries local residents dismantled the stones for household needs. In the 60s of the XVIII century, traveler and scientist Nikolai Petrovich Rychkov visited the Chertovoye Gorodishche in Yelabuga. He found here the ruins of a stone fortress and three towers.

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Tourists can get to the territory of the monument at any time. Devil’s settlement is located on the high bank of the river, and from here there is an excellent panorama of the wide Kama valley. The river in this place has a large bend, so for many kilometers around you can see settlements, trees in the floodplain of the Kama, fields, flood meadows and a pier on the river Toima. From the east you can perfectly see the Spassky Cathedral, the Embankment and the historical center of the city.

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Video: Devil’s Fort in Yelabuga

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History of Chertov settlement

The ancient settlement was founded by one of the Finno-Ugric tribes living on the banks of the Kama River. In the 10th century it was captured by the Volga Bulgaria. In 1236 this medieval state fell under the raids of the Tatar-Mongols. It lost its former independence and turned into one of the northern ulus of the mighty Golden Horde. The lands on the right bank of the Kama River were depopulated and abandoned.

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In the middle of the 16th century, Russia conquered the Khanate of Kazan. When this happened, the empty settlement was settled by Russians. It was then that the name “demon settlement” appeared in the annals. Since the XVII century, Chertovo ancient settlement in Elabuga in official charters was called “Stone settlement.”

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There is information that in 1614 the hermit Jonah Zeleny, who came from Kostroma, founded here the Trinity monastery for men. It existed on the remains of the ancient settlement for 160 years. In parallel, Podmonastyrskaya sloboda grew up on the right bank of the Kama River. In the middle of the XVIII century a large Kama village competed with neighboring Trekhsvyatsky, but in 1780 Russian Empress Catherine II issued a decree renaming Trekhsvyatsky to Elabuga. The new city grew rapidly and eventually absorbed Podmonastyrskaya Sloboda.

In 1834, the Devil’s Fort was described by Fyodor Ivanovich Erdman, a professor at Kazan University. By that time, only a stone tower survived from the ancient citadel, and the rest of the buildings were dismantled to the ground. Ten years later the ancient tower collapsed, except for a small fragment on the northern side.

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In 1867, the Yelabuga merchant I. V. Shishkin, father of the famous painter I. I. Shishkin, allocated money to repair the tower. The building was erected anew on the old base and covered with roofing iron. Four rectangular windows, which can be seen nowadays in the upper part of the stone structure, belong to the time of Shishkin’s reconstruction. The original masonry was preserved only on the northern side. According to archaeologists, the ancient builders used lime mortar with alabaster to bind the stones.

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What the archaeological monument looks like nowadays

In the east of the Chertov settlement in Yelabuga, the ruins of a square citadel with four towers, which occupy an area of 400 m², have been preserved. As scientists assume, these fortifications were erected in the 10th century by order of the prince of Volga Bulgaria.

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Of greatest interest is a cylindrical squat tower 7.1 meters high, built of unhewn stones. It is covered with a metal roof. The walls of different thicknesses give the building a conical volume. They are 2 m thick at the base and taper to 0.7 m at the top. The windows in the tower are oriented to the sides of the world. As part of the reconstruction, a wooden fence and a watchtower were built in the settlement.

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How to get there

Chertovo ancient settlement in Yelabuga is located near the mouth of the right tributary of the Kama River – the Toima River. The high cape is included in the city limits, and here you can get here by route number 1. You should get off near the stone staircase on Shishkin Street and follow it up to the settlement itself. Travelers by car get to the archaeological monument from the side of Neftyanikov Avenue.

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