On the bank of a small river Sukhona on the territory of pre-existing retail space is St. Nicholas Church with a bell tower, which is the famous monument of architecture of 17-19 centuries. This church belongs to the temple, which is an example of early architecture Ustyug, presented in a two-story stone building, which unites the summer and winter church.

Created the Church of St. Nicholas is unknown. The earliest mention of the church belong to 1630 in hundreds of books. According to the records in 1629, a cold wooden church named after St. Nicholas Gostinsky, burned, and there was only one small wooden church in honor of Dmitry Prilutsky also burned only in 1679.

May 17, 1682 on the site of the burnt church began construction of St. Nicholas Church, only to have the stone. Completion occurred in 1685. More than once the temple greatly suffered from the fires in 1698 and 1715 respectively. Some time later, in 1720, the church was built on the second tier, which is a cold church. Warm the church was built in honor of St. Dmitry Prilutsky - Vologda miracle-worker, and cold - in the name of St. Nicholas. The church once had a limit, built in the name Savvatii and Zosima - Solovetsky miracle workers.

Simultaneously with the construction of the upper floors of the church in 1720, it was built close to the bell tower standing. Initially, the bell tower had curly head, but during 1776 it was replaced by a spire with an angel and cross. Up to this point was a wooden bell tower, which had eight bells (burned in 1679).

According to oral tradition, the church of St. Nicholas was built on cash then famous merchants Panov. Proof of this can serve as an inscription on the wall of the porch of the church, which includes the date of creation of the Church, as well as the name of Vasily Alexeevich Panova. According to experts, the temple was founded visiting traders and why the church is called "Gostinsky." One of the characteristic features of the temple is the presence of the green copper domes as part of the church and bell tower that are gilded in the fire. It is known that the gilding took about 700 merchant ducats.

Unlike earlier models, bushel St. Nicholas Church is a trehsvetny high volume, but the upper part of the temple is illuminated by several rows of large rectangular windows. On the western part of the main volume is adjacent refectory room, and on the east side - altar extension, which was made with a ledge that gives the silhouette of the church some dynamism. Of particular interest is the triangular shape of the altar, which is likely, it begins its descent from the altars more wooden churches. The decoration of the facade, which has expressed a clear division, which are caused by the use of traditional classical order, first used in the architecture of Great Ustyug as the decoration of the facade. Completion central volume designed as a pair of octagons.

As is known, according to ancient tradition, the bell tower of the church of St. Nicholas interpreted by standing next to the volume, the lower part of which followed the compositional techniques of the 17th century. Arched openings are not blocked by ringing the tent and closed vault, which is octagonal ending spire. In general, the construction of the bell tower - this is an early and especially typical example of the type of longline belfry.

In 1986, after the restoration works were carried out in the premises of St. Nicholas Church, began its work the exhibition hall of the museum. On the ground floor of the temple it was exhibited exhibition entitled "Folk Art of the Great Ustyug." The richest collection of the museum stock allowed to show the diversity of folk art Ustyug land 17-20 centuries. Creativity was presented patterned, elected Harness, abusive weaving and pestryad; embroidered bottoms heels, painted woodwork, as well as forging, ceramics and punching.