Starytsky Holy Assumption Men's Monastery, one of the oldest centers of Orthodoxy in the northwest of Rus, is the birthplace of the first Moscow Patriarch Job. According to legend, the monastery was founded in 1110 by two monks from the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra, who arrived on the wild banks of the Volga to preach Orthodoxy among pagan tribes. The monastery, consisting of a wooden church and several cells, began to attract people, and the number of monks gradually increased.

However, at the end of the 13th century, the Tatars destroyed the monastery and killed almost all the monks, although the church remained intact. Later, the destruction continued with the internecine wars between the Moscow and Tver princes, during which the monastery was destroyed to the ground.

In the 16th century, Prince Andrey Starytsky, who received Starytsya as a fief from his father, Moscow Prince Ivan III, restored the monastery on the picturesque bank of the river. On the opposite bank rose the fortified walls of the Starytsky Kremlin with the princely palace. However, both Andrey Starytsky and his son Vladimir became victims of intrigues and power struggles.

Ivan the Terrible, who killed his cousin Vladimir Starytsky out of excessive suspicion, chose Starytsya as his residence during the Livonian War and contributed to the appearance of the monastery by building the Introduction Church.

The 16th century became a time of flourishing for the monastery. This spiritual center gifted the Orthodox world with Archbishop German of Kazan, the first Patriarch of Rus Job, and the abbot of the Trinity-Sergius Monastery Dionysius, who blessed the Russian militia to overthrow the Polish invaders in the early 17th century.

During the Time of Troubles, the monastery suffered great losses, being ravaged by the army of False Dmitry II, supported by the Poles. Two years prior, Patriarch Job had died here, having been deposed by False Dmitry I for refusing to swear allegiance to him.

In the following centuries, the monastery never regained its former level of prosperity but continued to develop and became a major educational and cultural center.

The Soviet authorities closed the monastery, but until the 1930s, the sound of bells still rang from its belfry over the Volga. Major restoration of the ancient abode began only in the early 2000s, and now its white-stone cathedrals again majestically rise above the Volga.