In the 14th century, during the reign of the Moscow prince Ivan Kalita, the word "sloboda" or (settlement) meant the land that he gave out to outsiders from other principalities for settling Russian lands after the Tatar devastation. Unlike serfs, these people were free. So the words "sloboda" and "freedom" (in Russian – svoboda) are related.
One of these settlements was Alexandrovskaya Sloboda. It was founded in 1513, when the Grand Duke of Vladimir and Moscow Vasily the Third, the father of Ivan the Terrible, laid the Intercession Church here and ordered to build a princely palace.
They invited Russian and Italian masters, who had previously been involved in the construction of the Moscow Kremlin. Vasily the Third has repeatedly stopped in the Aleksandrovskaya Sloboda during his trips to the Zamoskvorechye monasteries. After the death of Vasily the Third, his widow, Elena Glinskaya, ordered the construction of fortress walls and towers around Alexandrovskaya Sloboda to protect it from the boyars, who constantly encroached on her power.
In the legal language of that time, the inheritance allocated to the widow during the division of her husband's property was called oprichnina. The same word was used in Moscow principality to call the lands of the Grand Duchesses that were in their full possession. Aleksandrovskaya Sloboda was also part of the oprichnina of Elena Glinskaya. During the reign of Ivan the Terrible this word will acquire a completely different and eerie meaning.
Ivan IV who later got the nickname The Terrible, still a child traveled extensively in Aleksandrovskaya Sloboda. He also came here with his first wife, Empress Anastasia. And with his second wife, Princess Maria Temryukovna, and often lived here for several months. It was here that she died in September 1569. Ivan the Terrible always believed that both his wives were poisoned by the boyars. Perhaps this is one of the reasons for his hatred of them. Subsequently, he had two more wives officially recognized by the church - Marfa Sobakina and Anna Koltovskaya. Both were beautiful women chosen at special "shows" of brides. But they also met an unenviable fate. Marfa Sobakina died 15 days after the wedding, most likely she was also poisoned. Anna Koltovskaya was forcibly tonsured to a nunnery only six months after the marriage with the tsar. However, this saved her from poisoning, and subsequently she played a big role in the formation of the Tikhvin Presentation Monastery.
So, at the end of 1564, 35-year-old Ivan IV unexpectedly left Moscow, taking with him the state treasury, throne attributes and a private library. After several weeks of traveling around the capital's surroundings, the Tsar stopped at the Aleksandrovskaya Sloboda and wrote to the boyars in Moscow that he was abdicating because he was tired of their intrigues, conspiracies and betrayals.
Most likely, it was just a cunning stroke of diplomacy, since we know that John Vasilievich was a man with humor, albeit it with a black humor. However his move worked out: the boyar embassy arrived in the Aleksandrovskaya Sloboda with a request not to leave the throne. John let himself be tempted, but very soon boyars regretted it. Ivan IV returned to Moscow and announced the establishment of his own, special state in the state - oprichnina: from now on he assumed the authority to execute anyone, expose opales and confiscate boyar property in favor of oprichnina without legitimate criminal investigations and court decisions.
So Ivan the Terrible was born, and Aleksandrovskaya Sloboda for seventeen years became not only the center of his "oprichnina state", but also the de facto capital of Russia. Ivan the Terrible lived here almost without leaving, surrounded by his personal guards - oprichniks, - executed and pardoned, accepted foreign ambassadors and selected brides.
History preserved the memory of the royal bride show of the year 1571, two thousand beautiful women were brought to Aleksandrovskaya Sloboda from all over Russia, and the tsar being relict already for 3 years chose twelve girls, after which he then arranged a closer look for the girls who were already in the nude.
The tsar chose Marfa Sobakina, the daughter of Novgorod merchant, and she became his third wife. During these shows the tsar also chose the wife for his son, tsarevich Ivan. It was the boyar daughter Yevdokia Saburova. Both weddings were held here, in Aleksandrovskaya Sloboda. Newlyweds were married in the Trinity Cathedral of the Alexandrov Kremlin. A lot of buffoons and tame bears were brought for the wedding from Veliky Novgorod. But neither the Tsar nor the Tsarevich were happy in these marriages: Marfa Sobakina, the first beauty of Russia, died under strange circumstances, two weeks after the wedding, and Ivan the Terrible sent his son’s wife to the monastery a year later, allegedly because of her childlessness.
In a cruel irony, Alexandrovskaya Sloboda was destined to become a nunnery. Let's go to its territory.
