The Central district of Kostroma comprises the buildings and structures built in a classic architectural style during the period between 1770-1830. It's a fine example of unique, monolithic urban architectural complex. Kostroma is famous with its wonderful architectural monuments, Ipatyevsky Convent (16th-17th cent.) and the Church of Resurrection on Debra River (1652). Ipatyevsky Convent is located in a beautiful place, where the Kostroma River flows into Volga. The St. Trinity Cathedral of Convent is a powerful, monumental structure beautifully ornamented and decorated with the wall-paintings of Sila Slavin and Guriy Nikitin and their team. The wall-paintings look amazingly inspiring and display fantastic artistic flair of the artists, who managed to express the richest gamut of human feelings raised by the awe of God and anxious expectation of talking with God.

Many residential houses in Kostroma are built in a neo-classical style but in the provinces this style has none of the clear-cut austerity of the metropolis, serving to accentuate the unpretentious harmony of the building and to impart to it an air of intimacy.

This combination of the monuments of old architecture and cozy provincial neo-classicism, the blend of the regular layput and the wooden houses with an intricate lacy carvings on the facades, creates the unique, unforgettable image of Kostroma.