Let us now leave the Golden Gates and proceed to Kozlov Val behind the water-tower. From this high point there is a magnificent view of the old town of Vladimir and the broad sweep of the surrounding countryside.

On the left we have the white stone buildings of the churches of Our Saviour and St. Nicholas on the site of the former palace built by Andrei Bogolyubsky. Beyond them is the pink Church of St. George with its tent-shaped bell-tower marking the spot where Yuri Dolgo-ruky's residence once stood. Below the ground descends into a hollow and rises again in the east with the steep slopes of Vladimir Monomach's old town on the edge of which stands the Cathedral of the Assumption with its shining golden cupolas and the Cathedral of St. Dmitri behind it. Kozlov Val descends gradually to the point where the Volga Gates once stood and where the town wall used to rise up the slope to the corner of the Middle Town.

Facing due south one looks down on the broad ex¬panse of the water-meadows threaded by the silver ribbon of the Klyazma and fringed by a blue belt of forest that stretches as far as the eye can see. Part of the forest in the distance on the right has kept the ancient name of Georgievsky Forest and was possibly the hunt¬ing chase of the princes of Vladimir. Here you will also find the famous Plovucheye Lake. Legend has it that Andrei Bogolyubsky's murderers were put alive into coffins and then cast into the black waters of this lake in the depths of the forest.

On the right there is a good view of the elegant Church of St. Nicholas standing on the hillside with its slender tent-shaped bell-tower, and the Church of the Ascension on the hill behind it, where the twelfth-century Monastery of the Ascension once stood.

The view of the town from Kozlov Val is particularly fine in spring when the cherry trees are in bloom and the houses and old buildings stand in a sea of white blossom.