by Soviet historian and essayist Yuri Bychkov, who published in Sovetskaya Kultura in November–December 1967 a series of essays on the cities under the heading: "Golden Ring". Bychkov was one of the founders of ??????: the All-Russian Society for the Protection of Monuments of History and Culture (these letters in Romanized form are VOOPIK).

These ancient towns were heavily formative to the centrality of the Russian Orthodox Church in society.