Lake Nero

Nero (the Rostov lake) is the largest lake of Yaroslavl Oblast: 51–54 square kilometres, a 45-kilometre shoreline. It is very shallow — the average depth is about a metre, the maximum 3.6–4 metres — and its bed is covered with a sapropel layer up to 12 metres thick. It is a regional landscape nature monument. The lake is ancient and culturally rich: on its western shore stands Rostov Veliky, around it Porechye-Rybnoye and the villages of Ugodichi, Vorzha and Lvy; on the water are the Lvovsky and Rozhdestvensky islands. More than twenty rivers and streams flow in, and the Vyoksa flows out. Peter the Great considered Nero for his first fleet but chose Lake Pleshcheyevo because of the shallows. The lake has been overgrowing for centuries — eutrophication is constant and part of its nature: reeds, heron flights, sunsets over the reaches. Fishing: bream, perch, pike.