Wandering Camera

Album 138
(Translated by
Ilya Saprykin)

 

After the Great Novgorod it seems pretty logical to acquaint you with Staraya (Old) Ladoga - one of the biggest russian towns once, and quite ancient too - built about 862 (it was called just "Ladoga" then). For some time Old Ladoga was the capital of the Russian State, just like Moscow and Kiev. It was the domain of the elder Rurik prince, who had later moved to the Velikiy (Great) Novgorod. And, above all, the Great Novgorod and Ladoga are joined by a common river - Volhov.

 

Old Ladoga is about 120 km from St.Petersburg (by the Murmansk route).

This time, weather was a bit better than in the Great Novgorod, but far more colder.

En route...

This, as you can see, anything but a town. Even the fences don't have anything in common with their relatives around the mansions on the Kamenny island.

Today, Old Ladoga is just a pretty big village. Apart from its historical past and the buildings that are related to it, visually it is identical with ordinary villages. It ows this change to Peter I in particular, who, in 1704, had moved all establishments and citizens to the New Ladoga (aside lake Ladozhskoje). From that time "Ladoga" turned into "Old Ladoga".

And, once the railway was built, cargo transfers by Volhov were cancelled, which futher minimized the value of Old Ladoga.

On the hill (called Malisheva mountain) we can see the first place of interest - the church of Johann Predtechi (Johann the Baptist).

And by my side there is supposed to be the kurgan where Veshy Oleg is buried.

The river on the left is Volhov. We'll talk about it later.

So, the church of Johann Predtechi (1695).

Once was a part of the Johann Predtechi male monastery (didn't survive).

Bell. Fastening method (right) is quite simple :)
The window looks as ancient as the church itself.
And this "second campus" is built just a few meters away from the church. Locals say it the priest's house.
There is a dog in the booth to the left. A minute later it was saying everything it thought about unwelcome guests...
An interesting top for an exhaust tube (left).
To the other side of the church there are steps and footpath to the houses. Church people must be living there.

Later I've been told that if you go slightly left off the footpath, there well be entrance to one of the caves of Old Ladoga's stone quarries.

This happy cat was found by the church entrance.
As if some rich liquid was poured... this is Volhov.

Quite a big river, flowing from the Il'men' lake (where the Great Novgorod is) and into the Ladozhskoje lake (15 km above Old Ladoga - close to New Ladoga).

Volhov's pecularity is it's ability to change direction sometimes (after heavy rains and snow melting).

By the way, rivers depicted on the Rostral'nije (Rostral) columns in St.Petersburg are Volga, Dnepr, Neva and Volhov.

For a long time I wanted to express gratitude to Vitaly Lunev and his wife, Oksana: for good company and transportation.
Without their help there'd be far more less albums (as well as time spent for writing comments :)

Anyways - a big "thank you!" to them.

Having looked around, we move further. There's a lot more interesting in Old Ladoga. The next stop is pretty close - we are going to take a look at the Uspenskij (Assumption) monastery.

I've sorted guest albums and published a few more of Vitaly Lunev's albums

 

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