Ilmen and Staraya Russa

Description

A line from north to south, from the environs of Veliky Novgorod to Staraya Russa: two functioning monasteries, the spaciousness of the flat lake and the city that lives on salt for more than a thousand years. About one hundred and ten kilometers of roads; if desired, the route can be easily stretched for two days — Staraya Russa is worth staying. Start is the Khutyn Monastery on the left bank of Polist, founded in the fourteenth century and connected with the memory of Archbishop Euthymius II: cathedral, bell tower, buildings and fence with towers, a living monastery twenty–thirty minutes from the city. A little further south is the Yuriev Monastery on the southern bank of Ilmen, one of the oldest in Rus': the legend links its foundation to Yaroslav the Wise, in olden times scriptoria worked here, and the main cathedral and bell tower were formed in the eighteenth–nineteenth centuries. The wind from Ilmen is strong here even in summer — a windbreaker will come in handy. Further the route comes out to the lake itself. Ilmen is one of the largest lakes of the Northwest with an area of over seven hundred square kilometers: the Lovat, Msta, Polist flow into it, and through the Volkhov it is connected with Ladoga. This is not a lake-resort, but a wetland expanse with birds, fishing according to the rules and horizons that the Novgorod Kremlin does not give; "to go around the entire lake" in a day will not work — choose one bank. The southern end of the line is Staraya Russa. First, Rurikovo Gorodishche on the right high bank of the Polist: ramparts, moats and the settlement territory with finds of the ninth–twelfth centuries — an open archaeological landscape without reconstructions, from where the river and the lowland part of the city are visible. Then is Russa itself, a resort with mineral springs that were used in the Middle Ages: since the nineteenth century balneological institutions, wooden galleries and a dacha atmosphere operate here. Water of different wells differs in composition, drinking from technical wells is not allowed, and procedures work by appointment; nearby is Dostoevsky house-museum and merchant streets that deserve a separate morning.