Kargopol

a city, the center of Kargopol’ Raion, Arkhangel’sk Oblast, RSFSR; situated on the left bank of the Onega River, 5 km from its source at Lake Lacha and 89 km west of the Niandoma station on the Vologda-Arkhangel’sk railway line.

Kargopol’ developed in the 14th century. During the 15th and 16th centuries it was an important commercial settlement connected with the salt trade. In 1608, I. I. Bolotnikov was sent to Kargopol’, where he was blinded and drowned in the Onega. In 1612, Kargopol’ resisted a Polish siege. After 1801 it became a district city of Olonets Province. The city has a creamery, a brewery, a linen-processing plant, and a plant producing asphalt concrete. Kargopol’s chief architectural monuments include the Khristorozhdestvenskii Cathedral (1562), the Blagoveshchenie Church (1682–92), the Church of St. Vladimir (1653), the Rozh-destvo Bogoroditsy Church (1653), and the Church of St. John the Baptist (1751), all cubic stone churches with four-slope roofs and “patterned-style” facades. Kargopol’ has a teachers college and a museum of local lore.