Belozersk

Belozersk is the direct descendant of chronicle Beloozero, which kept its ancient name until the 1777 reform. The lands around Beloye lake belonged to the Veps tribe, known from documents of roughly the sixth century; the shore itself, by archaeological evidence, was settled only from the ninth, and in the tenth century Slavs joined the Veps settlers — Novgorod and Rostov-Suzdal streams arrived on these lands almost simultaneously, and traces of both are still heard in the local place-names. The region's early wealth was tied to branches of the great Volga route leading to Europe's main waterway, 'from the Varangians to the Greeks': the people of the Beloozero land took furs (hunting beaver, marten, squirrel, otter), fished and traded. In the 1070s a customs post was moved here from the Novgorod settlement at the confluence of the Kema and Kovzha rivers, where the fur export was controlled — a sign that the place had become a junction of all-Russian importance. In the fourteenth century, when the fur beasts dwindled, the town moved to its present site — that happened in 1364. Today's Belozersk is a quiet town of some eight thousand with an earthen kremlin above the lake: the ramparts and moat of the old fortress read in the relief better than many stone fortresses. The town has churches, museums and an embankment on Beloye lake from which the waterway to the Sheksna begins. For the traveller Belozersk is the point where 'ancient Rus' stops being a stamp: chronicles measured the history of Russian towns from here, and the ramparts above the lake stand in the open field as direct proof. It is an easy day trip from Kirillov — the road along the lake is beautiful in itself, sunset over Beloye lake counts among the region's most northern views, and the ramparts work best in contre-jour evening light.