Kerzhenets River

Kerzhenets River
Kerzhenets near "Ozero" railway station
Country	Russia
Basin
River mouth	Volga River
Basin size	6,140 km2 (2,370 sq mi)
Physical characteristics
Length	290 km (180 mi)

Kerzhenets River (Russian: Керженец) is a river in the Nizhny Novgorod Oblast in Russia. It is a left tributary of the Volga, joining the Volga near Lyskovo, about 70 km east of Nizhny Novgorod.

History

After the schism (Raskol) of the 1660s within the Russian Orthodox Church, the densely forested shores of the Kerzhenets became the refuge for many Old Believers. Their settlements, called Kerzhenets sketes (Russian: Керженские скиты), remained numerous into the 19th century, and the people themselves were known as the Kerzhaks (Кержаки).

According to an Old Believer legend, the oldest of the sketes, the Olenevsky Skete (Russian: Оленевский скит, i.e. "The Skete of the Deer"), had supposedly been founded in the 15th century by some of Venerable Macarius's monks to commemorate their leader's Miracle of the Moose that took place at that site, and later joined the Raskol.

The former skete is now the village of Bolshoye Olenevo, located some 24 km south-east from the district capital Semenov.^[1]

References

Volga River
Tributaries	Selizharovka Vazuza Tvertsa Shosha Dubna Medveditsa Nerl Kashinka Sit Mologa Suda Sheksna Sogozha Kotorosl Kostroma Nyomda Unzha Uzola Oka Kudma Kerzhenets Sura Vetluga Rutka Tsivil Great Kokshaga Little Kokshaga Anish Ilet Sviyaga Sumka Kazanka Kama Aktay Bezdna Cheremshan Sok Samara Chapayevka Little Irgiz Irgiz Tereshka Yeruslan Akhtuba (distributary)
Reservoirs	Lake Volgo Ivankovo Uglich Rybinsk Gorky Cheboksary Kuybyshev Saratov Volgograd
Hydroelectric stations	Ivankovo Uglich Rybinsk Nizhny Novgorod Cheboksary Zhiguli Saratov Volga
Canals	Moscow Canal Volga–Baltic Waterway Volga–Don Canal
Cities	Astrakhan Volgograd Saratov Samara Kazan Ulyanovsk Nizhny Novgorod Yaroslavl Tver

Coordinates: 56°05′25″N 44°57′51″E / 56.09028°N 44.96417°E / 56.09028; 44.96417