SERGWEVO (now ZAGORSK), a town of Russia in the prov ince of Moscow, in 56° 23' N., 38° 5' E. It grew up around the monastery or lavra of Troitsko-Sergiyevskaya, one of the most important architectural and historic relics of the Russian Middle Ages. It was formerly greatly venerated in Russia and visited by thousands of pilgrims; the inhabitants (31,413 in 1900) were renowned for their carved and painted ikons and wooden souve nirs sold to the visitors. After the 1917 revolution it was con verted into a museum. The electro-technical academy of the Red Army has been located in the town and a textile artel has been formed. The population in 1926 was 21,391.
A small wooden church erected by the monk Sergius was burned by the Tatars in 1391, and the cathedral of the Trinity (Troitsk) built in the Vladimir Suzdal style in 1422 stands on the site. It contains a number of ikons, including one by Rublev.
The Uspensky (Assumption) cathedral was erected in 1585 and in the southern part of the monastery is the church of Sergius, beneath which are the spacious rooms where in pre-revolution times dinners were distributed gratis to pilgrims. The bell tower of the monastery, 32o ft. high has a bell weighing 64 tons. Several monasteries of lesser importance existed in the neighbourhood. The monastery acquired so much wealth that walls 25 to 5o ft. in height and fortified by nine towers were erected in 1513 and within them were the two cathedrals, several churches, buildings for the monks and pilgrims, including a hospital, and a theological academy. Ivan the Terrible made the Sergiyevo monastery the centre of the ecclesiastical province of Moscow in 1561.