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Yaroslavl was founded in 1010 by Yaroslavl the Wise. Legend has it that when Yaroslavl the Wise first came to the area the inhabitants tried to chase him away by encouraging a bear to attack him. Some say that he wrestled the bear to the ground. Others say that he killed the animal with his spear. The city emblem is a black bear carrying a halberd on a field of yellow. (Kind of confusing to me as to who won the fight.) The city is located at the confluence of the Volga and Kotorosl Rivers and the location obviously favored the town's growth as a center of trade. In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries it suffered from the Tartar invasions and was repeatedly burned. Yaroslavl was incorporated into the Moscow Principality in 1463. In the seventeenth century it was the second largest city in Russia and during the Polish occupation of Moscow served briefly as the ad hoc capital of the country. Much of the city was renovated in response to the town planning decrees of Catherine the Great in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. There are a number of important churches, convents, and monasteries in Yaroslavl and it is said by some that it possesses the greatest collection of medieval frescos in Russia. UNESCO has designated the city center a World Heritage Site.
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