Valday to Msta: Hills and Porcelain

Description

A one-day drive from south to north across Novgorod Oblast, from the Valday Hills to Borovichi: lake country, a national park, the valley of the region’s main river and a town with a porcelain biography. About a hundred and seventy kilometres by road; part of the route runs on secondary roads that wash out after rain. It begins with the Valday Hills: an upland at the meeting of three districts, where lakes, bogs and mixed forest lie between gentle crests. This is not a reserve but a living rural territory — fields, villages and forest roads; the best impressions come from side trips to chains of lakes and lookout points. Nearby is Valdaysky National Park, created in 1990 around the lakes Valdayskoye, Nakhimovskoye and Selintsovskoye: trails of varying length, visiting rules and a quiet regime on part of the territory. The route then reaches the valley of the Msta — the river that rises in the Valday bogs and flows north through Borovichi into the Lovat. Villages, mills and piers stood along its banks: the valley was historically a trade corridor between Novgorod, Tver and St. Petersburg. Today it is a mix of fields, forests and village churches, and crossings of the river are best planned by bridges. In the village of Peski on the Borovichi–Valday road stands a stone church of the nineteenth century — a typical “roadside” temple visible from the highway as a vertical accent. The finale is Borovichi, the region’s second town on the bank of the Msta: pottery and porcelain have been made here since the eighteenth century, and the Proletary factory produced tableware familiar from family cupboards and flea markets. The factory itself is a working plant, so the walk goes through the town: the Msta embankment, merchant houses and the bridge over the river.