The Resurrection Cathedral stands on the town's highest point, the so called Dukhova Hill where in the 13th – 15th centuries strong fortifications, earth walls, moats, wooden walls and towers were constructed.
This former Kremlin is reminded of by the high mounds, which have survived nearby. According to chronicles, the Cathedral existed as early as in 1382.
In the mid-16th century, Prince Yury of Dmitrov built the town's first stone church on the site of the dilapidated wooden cathedral; this was also the city's first stone building, which survived up until the mid-18th century.
This four-pillared and five-domed Cathedral had underground storage rooms, church porches and one entrance. The ground floor housed the heated church, while the main rectangular block was occupied by the unheated church, with the upper floor being higher than the lower floor by more than half. The inner space was around 15 meters (49 feet) long and as wide.
In 1767, the Cathedral suffered from a great fire. People say that this fire destroyed not only the old clock on its bell tower, but also, which is especially sad, the chronicles of ancient Kashin called the Kahath book, known to exist as early as 1415, which had been kept inside the Cathedral.
At the turn of the 19th century, the old Cathedral was replaced with a new monumental cathedral in the Classical style. Money for the construction of the new Resurrection Cathedral were granted by Empress Catherine the Great herself; and the amount was significant, 7,000 roubles. It was however built in an unfortunate way: one of the walls developed a crack. The Cathedral had to be disassembled and built all over again.
When in 1855 a heated church and a magnificent, 70 meters (229 feet) high, bell tower were added to the Cathedral's building, the Cathedral became Tver Diocese's largest: it could fit all the 7,000-strong population of Kashin.
It is interesting to know that 250,000 roubles were allocated, for buying new tower clock at a Leipzig fare as well as for the construction project, by the merchant Nikolay Terlikov, a local wine seller. The townsfolk remarked acridly that he had done it to "redeem his sins". Terlikov was selling fake grape wines, which were harmful to consume, all over Russia. The entire country knew about it.
It is known that the Cathedral was famous with its rare icons and its carved and gilt icon-stand. The mid-15th century collection of icons from the Resurrection Cathedral is now kept at the Tretyakov Gallery and at the Russian Museum.
The church consists of an apse, the temple itself featuring its solemn five domes, a refectory and a three-tier bell tower with a clock. It is an outstanding architectural monument, distinguished by its true monumentalism and its clear three-dimensional and two-dimensional solutions.
The facades are decorated with six-pillared, Tuscan order porticos with pediments, the corners are reinforced with pilasters and the wall surface is covered with shallowly sunk panels. The lantern drums of the domes are of octagonal shape, which is very similar to the churches that are wide-spread in Kashin, those featuring octagonal top parts.
For a long time, the Resurrection Cathedral was the town's main church. Its bell-tower clock guided virtually every step of the town's inhabitants. Shops were opened and closed; people went to work and to the market and visited other people to the clock's chime. The Cathedral dominated the city and inspired religious, reverential awe. The Resurrection Cathedral is the town's largest building.
The Krestoznamenskaya Church, built from 1782 to 1784, is a modest small temple similar to most Kashin churches built in the second half of the 18th century. It is situated on the right bank of the Kashinka River. The Church has two floors. An unheated part, used for summer services, is downstairs; while upstairs there is a heated winter church (17...
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