Images of Smolensk

Smolensk — Russia’s oldest and most strategic city

Smolensk is the westernmost city in Russia, less than 50 miles from the border with Belarus, one of the former Soviet republics that has retained a totalitarian government.

Smolensk is also the oldest city in Russia, dating back to at least the 9th century. It was already a sizable city — its population is currently 400,000 — when Moscow was first getting started in about 850 A.D.

From its earliest days, Smolensk has been critically important economically and militarily. The three rivers that flow through it provide access to the Caspian, Baltic and Black Seas, a rarity that makes Smolensk an historically commercial hub in eastern Europe.

Militarily, all invasion routes to Russia run through Smolensk and so it has been a crucial battleground for centuries. Since the 15th century, Smolensk has been a strategic front in wars with Latvia, Poland, France and Germany. In recent centuries, both Napoleon and Hitler successfully overran Smolensk, but paid such a heavy price that their subsequent attempts to push on to Moscow came to ruin.

Smolensk, then, features various monuments to war heroes, as well as churches dating back to the 12th century, and its singular piece of architecture: the remnants of a 45-feet high/20 feet wide wall that, when built at the turn of the 17th century to defend the city against an imminent Polish invasion, completely encircled Smolensk. Originally running more than 3.5 miles with 38 towers along its length, only about one-third of the wall and its towers remain.

The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)’s most long-standing and highly-evolved “twinning” partnership in Russia — between First Baptist Church of Smolensk and White Memorial Presbyterian Church of Raleigh, NC, makes Smolensk a crown jewel of the denomination’s Russia Church Twinning Project (Extra Commitment Giving account #047954).

Photos, top to bottom: The eternal flame commemorating World War II dead; the 17th century defense wall; a memorial to those who died defending Smolensk against Napoleon; St. Michael's Cathedral, a 12th century church; St. Peter and Paul Cathedral, built 1150 years ago and the oldest church in Russia; the main cathedral of Smolensk, completed early in the 18th century.

Photos by Jerry Van Marter