Argamach-Palna Village

Argamach-Palna lies below Mount Argamach, at the Palna river's confluence, ten kilometres from Yelets. The name comes from the hill and the river; the hill is mentioned in a Yelets voivode's dispatch of 1593, and a stockade appeared at its watchtower, giving rise to the village in the 17th century. Nearby is the medieval settlement of 'Argamach-Palna 3' from the era of the Yelets principality (late 14th — early 15th century). The village preserves the Nativity of the Theotokos church, an archaeological park operates on the site, and the Argamach tract is a landscape-biological nature monument and a candidate for inclusion in the Galichya Gora reserve. The village stands next to the Vorgol Rocks already known from the catalog: the canyons of the Palna and the Vorgol form a single Yelets 'mountain' cluster worth a day trip from Yelets.