One of the largest lakes in Europe, Ilmen lies in the north-western lands of our country, not far from the cradle of Russian statehood - the ancient city of Novgorod the Great. The lake is on the famous route "from the Varangians to the Greeks."

From the ancient Slavs, Ilmen was nicknamed the "Slovenian Sea."

Ilmen Square is about a thousand square kilometers, and the maximum depth is only 10 meters. The lake is shallow, it was even considered a spill of rivers flowing into it. Today this region attracts tourists with the cleanest air, picturesque nature, and, of course, fishing.

 Ilmen
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How to get there

By train from Moscow to Veliky Novgorod, about eight hours on the road.

By car from Moscow on the M-10 (Russia) to the Veliky Novgorod congress Approximately eight hours on the road and about five hundred kilometers

Search for tickets to Moscow (nearest Ilmenu airport)

Interesting facts

Ilmen Lake was formed about two and a half thousand years ago as a result of a deep fault. This is the only lake in Russia where the water level drops up to seven meters.

About fifty rivers flow into Ilmen, the largest of them are Msta, Shelon, Pola, Lovat. The Volkhov River flows out of the lake, on which Veliky Novgorod stands. Ilmen shores are mostly low-lying, in the south-west are picturesque limestone cliffs of reddish color, called "ilmen clay."

The water in the lake is cool enough, and even rarely rises above twenty degrees even in summer.

Despite the yellowish color of Ilmen , which give it organic peat deposits, the water here is very clean. The reservoir freezes around the twentieth of November and opens at the end of April.

It is not known for certain who lived on the shores of this lake in ancient times. There are many different hypotheses, but none has reliable confirmation. Here there are traces of both the Uralic ethnoses, and later Finnish ethnic groups, and traces of the Slavs, and even, although not in considerable numbers, some toponyms of Scandinavian-German origin.

There are also disputes about the origin of the name Ilmen. Some researchers argue that the name of the lake is a word of Finnish origin ilma-jarvi and means "lake of bad weather". Indeed, the lake has been famous for its strong storms and storms since ancient times, in which it is scary to find itself to this day.

The paragraph of history

In the Middle Ages, Ilmen Lake (then called Ilmer) lay on the famous path "from the Varangians to the Greeks" , running from the Baltic Sea to Byzantium .In the times of the Moscow-Novgorod wars, in 1471, in the village of Korostyn, a peace treaty was signed between Moscow and Novgorod, according to which Novgorodians in fact recognized Moscow's authority, and the fate of the free Novgorod Republic was sealed . At the time of Peter the Great Ilmen attracted state husbands in connection with the creation of the Vyshnevolotsk water system (connects the Tvertsa river with the Baltic Sea), which the tsar began to build in 1703 to ensure the supply of goods from Central Russia to St. Petersburg .

Studies of Ilmen and P The Russian scientist Mikhail Vasilyevich Lomonosov, who initiated the expeditions of the Russian Academy of Sciences, took an extremely great interest in the field, and many well-known and distinguished scientists of that time took part in it.

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 Ilmen
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Fishing on Ilmen

It's over, one of the main entertainments on Ilmen is fishing. Due to the fact that the lake runs into a huge number of rivers, there are more than forty species of fish. Among them: tench, ruff, snack, pike, perch, pike perch, asp, catfish, bream, burbot, ide, roach and many others. Earlier here there was even a whitefish, which unfortunately disappeared after the construction of the Volkhov hydroelectric station. So a variety of places for fishing can be found abound and, as they say, for every taste. One of the most famous is the village of Vozvad, known since the twelfth century.

You can fish on Ilmen all year round. There is an opportunity to stay at the local residents, and here you can hire gear, boats and everything else that the fisherman needs. But you need to follow the safety rules, because the weather on the lake is variable, and the winds and storms are severe.

For lovers of winter fishing, Lake Ilmen has one interesting feature. If you punch a hole in the ice and bring a match to the hole, the air released from it will burn. This is explained by the fact that at the bottom of Ilmen there live bacteria that process peat, which is why gas is released.

Be sure to try delicious lake fish that you can catch yourself or buy from local residents.

Beaches and hotels

In Ilmen clean water that has to bathing in the warm season. On the lake there are good sandy beaches, though they are all "wild". There are beaches near the Pereski Skete, near the villages of Sergovo, Ondvor, Ilmen.

Ilmen can be accommodated in hotels and sanatoria, or you can rent a house entirely or stop at local residents.

From the ancient Slavs Ilmen received the nickname " The Slovenian Sea. "

Ilmen's Entertainment, Excursions and Attractions

Because of the variability of weather and the danger of storms, this kind of recreation like water walks on Ilmen is practically absent. Lake waves easily turn small boats and boats, there is nowhere to hide from them, since there are no islands on the lake, and the distance from one shore to another can be up to fifty kilometers. But there is a popular and safe route to the uninhabited island of Lipno, on which stands the beautiful church of Nicholas-on-Lipne of the thirteenth century, which can only be reached by water.

It is worth visiting the nearby ancient Russian cities: Veliky Novgorod and Staraya Russu.

Ancient Veliky Novgorod, founded in 859, is only six kilometers from Lake Ilmen, which makes it very attractive for excursions. Also from the moorings of Novgorod there is a sightseeing tram along the Volkhov River to the place where the river flows into Ilmen. During the walk there is an opportunity to enjoy the views of the Masters of Novgorod the Great, the St. George Monastery and the Rurik settlement.

Old Russa is located 99 kilometers from Veliky Novgorod, in the Ilmen lake basin . When this ancient city is for sure not known, the first mention in the annals dated 1167, but it is known that the settlement on this site was here before . Today the time of the origin of Staraya Russa dates back to the end of the tenth - the beginning of the eleventh century . Many medieval x frames, as well as various architectural monuments and museums . It is worth to visit the Spaso-Preobrazhensky Monastery founded in 1192 .