Golden Ring

The Golden Ring (Russian: Золото́е кольцо́) is a ring of cities northeast of Moscow, the capital of Russia. They formerly comprised the region known as Zalesye.

These ancient towns, which also played a significant role in the formation of the Russian Orthodox Church, preserve the memory of the most important and significant events in Russian history. The towns have been called "open-air museums" and feature unique monuments of Russian architecture of the 12th–18th centuries, including kremlins, monasteries, cathedrals, and churches. These towns are among the most picturesque in Russia and prominently feature Russia's famous onion domes.

Cities included

There is no official list of which cities make up part of the Golden Ring with the exception of the eight principal cities of Yaroslavl, Kostroma, Ivanovo, Suzdal, Vladimir, Sergiev Posad, Pereslavl-Zalessky and Rostov Veliky. In addition to this other old cities in the Ivanovo, Vladimir and Yaroslavl regions also considered themselves as part of the ring, including Palekh, Plyos and Shuya (Ivanovo Region) Gorokhovets, Gus-Khrustalny, Murom, Yuriev-Polsky (Vladimir Region) and Rybinsk, Tutaev and Uglich (Yaroslavl Region).

Golden Ring (album)

Golden Ring is an album by American country music artists George Jones and Tammy Wynette, released in 1976 on the Epic Records label. It reached #1 on the Billboard Country Album chart. The singles "Near You" and "Golden Ring" both reached #1 on the Country Singles chart.

Background

Golden Ring (song)

"Golden Ring" is a song made famous by country music singers George Jones and Tammy Wynette. Originally released in 1976, the song was the title track to their duet album released that same year. It was a Number One hit on the Billboard country charts.

Recording and composition

The song was conceived by songwriter Bobby Braddock, who had seen a television drama about the life of a handgun. The story showed the gun changing hands several times, with a hunter, police officer, criminal and a father of a 2-year-old child all owning the gun at one point, with the consequences played out in each segment. Braddock applied the same concept to a song about the life of a wedding ring. A young couple from Chicago - apparently very much in love - goes to a pawn shop to shop for a ring for their upcoming wedding. The man (both characters are unnamed in the song) laments that he is unable to pick out a more expensive band, but he's willing to buy it to show how much he loves his bride-to-be, whom - in the song's second verse - he marries in a small wedding chapel later on that afternoon. In the third verse, the couple has been fighting which leads to "their final round". The man accuses his wife of planning to leave town; the woman retorts by telling her husband she doesn't love him anymore, "and throws down the ring / as she walks out the door." The final verse features the ring, once again in a pawnshop waiting for its next owners. The refrains tell about the meaning of the ring through its lifecycle with the couple. The first refrain speaks of the promise of love shown in the glittering ring; the second verse talks about how "at last, it's found a home," and the finale tells of how the ring has been cast aside "like the love that's dead and gone." Each refrain ends with how a wedding band is meaningless without love. "By itself, it's just a cold metallic thing. / Only love can make a golden wedding ring".