Sokolskiy District

Sokolskiy District — a territory in the north of the Nizhny Novgorod Region, on the left bank of the Volga, cut off from the rest of the Region by the waters of the Gorky Reservoir. It is the only part of the Region to have come from another federal subject: from 1935 to 1994 Sokolskiy was a district of Ivanovo Oblast, and only on 3 February 1994 did the Federation Council approve the change to the boundary between the two oblasts. Since 2015 the district has existed as the Sokolskiy urban okrug, and from 1 January 2025 as a municipal okrug; its administrative center is the workers' settlement of Socolskoye. Area: 1,981.44 km²; 243 populated localities; approximately 10,700 residents. ^{[1][9][12][15]}

Where it is

The district lies on the left bank of the Volga, on the Unzha Lowland, in the forest zone. To the north it borders the Makaryev District of Kostroma Oblast, to the south the Gorodetsky District, to the east the Koverninsky District, while the entire western edge is washed by the Gorky Reservoir: the boundary with Ivanovo Oblast runs across the water here. From Nizhny Novgorod to Sokolskoye is 104 kilometers as the crow flies and 138 by road; the scheduled bus from the regional capital takes about three and a half hours. ^[1][3]

The area of the okrug is 1,981.44 km². It comprises 243 populated localities: one workers' settlement and 242 rural ones. About half the territory is covered by forest — this is the southern fringe of the taiga, where pine, spruce, and larch grow; beyond the forest there are more than forty springs and small rivers. ^[1][3][16]

The names of the local rivers — Mocha, Micha, Shirmaksha, Kurtyuga — are Finno-Ugric: before the arrival of the Russians in the thirteenth century, the north of what is now Nizhny Novgorod Region was inhabited by the Merya and the Mari, and apart from these hydronyms almost nothing of theirs remains here. ^[4][18]

The Origin of the Name

Local historians continue to debate the origin of the word "Sokolskoye," and none of the proposed versions has been proven. The official history of the district favors the most prosaic explanation — a geographical one — while the most enduring version among locals involves birds. ^[1][3]

The Merya, the Sheremetyevs, the Musin-Pushkins

People came here long before the chronicles; by the end of the first millennium the region was settled by Finno-Ugric tribes — the Merya, the Muroma, and the Ves — who lived by hunting and fishing. In the fourteenth century, the lands of what would become Sokolsky District were part of the Grand Nizhny Novgorod Principality. ^[2]

In the 17th century, Sokolskoye was a large settlement: 1,072 peasant households belonging to boyar Fyodor Ivanovich Sheremetev. A. P. Barsukow's genealogical compendium "The Sheremetev Family" (1881–1904) mentions Sokolskaya Volost of Yuryevetsky Uyezd twice; according to it, in 1634, following the conclusion of the Peace of Polyanovka with the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, the boyar received it from the tsar from among the "black volosts." ^[2]

When Russia was divided into governorates, Sokolskaya Volost became part of Makaryevsky Uyezd of Kostroma Governorate. In the 19th century, an estate belonging to the counts Musin-Pushkin appeared in the village — the very family to which the discoverer of "The Tale of Igor's Campaign" belonged; all that remains of the estate today is a park. The Musin-Pushkin house was demolished in the 1950s during preparations for the bed of the Gorky Reservoir, and according to accounts from those who took part in the demolition, the owners' visiting card was found during the work. ^[2][3]

The backwater, the shipyard, the settlement

Sokolskoye grew up by the water. The old mouth of the Unzha River formed a convenient backwater here, and as Volga steamship traffic developed, vessels began coming to it for the winter: regular wintering began in 1880, and a small artisan workshop for repairs operated at the backwater. The district considers 1888 the official founding date of the settlement — the year when workshops for the repair and winter berthing of river vessels were properly established; as a settlement, Sokolskoye had been known two and a half centuries earlier, so 1888 is not the date of the village but of the settlement at the backwater. ^[1][4]

In 1902 the workshops were reclassified as specialized facilities and became a shipbuilding yard. At first, large wooden barges 85 meters in length with a displacement of 1,500 tons or more were built here, along with floating landing stages and guard vessels on reinforced-concrete hulls. From the early 1970s, the yard switched to metal and specialized in auxiliary non-self-propelled vessels: barges with a carrying capacity of up to 1,500 tons, docks of up to 800 tons, floating landing stages, guard vessels, and wooden rescue boats. In 1993, the enterprise was privatized. ^[5]

Today, JSC "Sokolskaya Shipyard" has 9.5 hectares of territory, one hundred meters of quay wall, and a slipway built in 2006 with a lifting capacity of up to one thousand tons. On 21 May 2026, the lead torpedo-recovery boat "TL-2202" of Project 1388NZTM, developed by the Vympel design bureau, was launched here; the ceremony was attended by the shipyard's general director Vasily Chernov and the head of the district's local government Aleksandr Sozonov. Vessels of this project retrieve practice torpedoes from the water and transport them after training exercises. ^[5][6]

A district of Ivanovo Oblast

The administrative affiliation of these lands changed more often than any other corner of the present-day region. In 1917, Sokolskaya Volost was transferred from Makaryevsky Uyezd to Koverninsky; in 1922, following the abolition of Koverninsky Uyezd, to Yuryevetsky Uyezd; from January 1929, together with the governorate, it became part of Ivanovo-Voznesenskaya Oblast, which in March was renamed Ivanovo Industrial Oblast, and from April of the same year it found itself in that oblast's Kostroma Okrug. ^[2][4]

On 25 January 1935, Sokolsky District was established by a decree of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, and the village of Sokolskoye became its administrative center; from 1936, the district was listed as part of Ivanovo Oblast, and in 1938 Sokolskoye received the status of a workers' settlement. According to records kept by local Sokolskoye historians, the district's first collective farm was "Krasny Pakhar" ("Red Ploughman"), established in 1928; its chairman was F. E. Olnev. ^[2][4]

By the 1980s, Sokolsky had become the largest district by territory in Ivanovo Oblast and second only to Ilyinsky in arable land area. Collective farms and state farms were meeting their five-year plan targets, construction was under way in the settlement and in the countryside, and the local economy was short of young workers — to address this, a branch of a vocational school was opened in Sokolsky in 1980, and two years later the district got its own rural vocational-technical school No. 9. ^[2]

Gore-More

On November 16, 1947, the Council of Ministers of the USSR decided to build the Gorky Hydroelectric Power Station near Gorodets. The dam blocked the Volga; the reservoir was filled between 1955 and 1957, and the river level rose by seventeen meters. Before this, the Volga's channel was roughly 450 meters wide and four to six — in places up to ten — meters deep; the width of today's reservoir near Yuryevets is eleven to thirteen kilometers. ^[7][8]

The Gorky Reservoir covers 1,590 km², holds 8.71 km³ of water, has an average depth of 3.65 meters with a maximum of 22 meters, stretches 427 kilometers from Rybinsk to Zavolzhye, and reaches up to 16 kilometers wide. In winter it freezes over entirely, with an average ice thickness of 65 centimeters; ice forms here a week earlier than on the rest of the river and breaks up one to two weeks later. The reservoir has a double folk name — "Gorky Sea" and "Gore-More" (Sea of Grief). ^[8]

No one has ever compiled a single list of what the Sokolsky side lost, but the losses are visible even today. The village of Tevelevo went under water along with its holy spring and chapel — only a venerated boulder survived, half-submerged; hundreds of boulders washed out of the former land lie along the local shoreline, and in the coastal fields tractor drivers turn up new stones every year, stones that rise from the ground "like mushrooms." The climate of the shoreline has also changed: it has become more humid and warmer. ^[8][18]

Sokolskoye and Yuryevets

Directly across from Sokolskoye, on the right bank, stands Yuryevets — the oldest town in Ivanovo Oblast. Their connection is not merely visual: until 1929, Sokolskaya volost was part of Yuryevetsky Uyezd, and Barsukov's compendium placed it in that same uyezd as far back as the seventeenth century. ^[2][7]

It was Yuryevetsky District that bore the brunt of the Ivanovo zone of inundation. Some 39,621 hectares of land were taken for the reservoir bed, including 26,687 hectares from 51 collective farms — the territory of 22 rural soviets. A total of 81 inhabited localities were subject to relocation: 214 houses in Yuryevets itself, 672 in the settlement of Novaya Slobodka, 1,315 in rural areas, 383 other structures, and eight churches; 3,907 families were resettled, with compensation calculated separately for the town, the settlement, and the countryside. In Yuryevetsky District alone, some 20,000 hectares of forest were felled to clear the future reservoir bed, and the Krivoyezersky Monastery, churches, cemeteries, and the large vegetable-growing state farm Mayak were left beneath the water. ^[7]

Seventy years later, the water linked the two banks once more: in the summer of 2026, the high-speed vessel route ""Meteor 120R"" Nizhny Novgorod — Yaroslavl gained a stop at Sokolskoye, and the settlement was added to the timetable between Chkalovsk and Yuryevets. ^[21]

How the District Left Ivanovo Oblast

The sea cut the district off from its own region. Getting to Ivanovo from the left bank required a roundabout route, most often by road through Gorodets: seven hours of travel compared to two hours to Nizhny Novgorod. Residents began campaigning for a transfer — first to the Gorky, then to the Nizhny Novgorod Region; a local referendum was held, and the majority voted in favor. ^[1][11]

On February 3, 1994, the Federation Council of the Federal Assembly adopted Resolution No. 38-1 SF "On Approving Changes to the Boundary between Ivanovo and Nizhny Novgorod Regions." It legally formalized the transfer of Sokolsky District, and the workers' settlement of Sokolskoye became the administrative center of the district now within the Nizhny Novgorod Region. Along with the boundary, the Ivanovo hunting reserve "Sokolsky" — established by decisions of the regional Soviet in 1980 and 1983 — also ceased to exist: its status was revoked on the same date, February 3, 1994. ^[1][9][10]

The separation was an unconventional step toward pulling the district out of crisis — life itself pushed the people of Sokolskoye toward it

"Together for 10 Years"

Governor Boris Nemtsov came to the district for the celebration marking the transfer. Ten years later, on February 3, 2004, a ceremony was held at the Sokolskoye House of Culture under the slogan "Together for 10 Years" — attended by Governor Gennadiy Khodyrev and Legislative Assembly Chairman Evgeniy Lyulin. Local government head Aleksandr Shilov cited gasification and roads as the main achievements: between 1996 and 2003, the district laid 44 kilometers of gas pipelines at a cost of approximately 50 million rubles, and between 1994 and 2003, 284 kilometers of asphalt-surfaced roads were built and repaired. According to Khodyrev, over ten years the district had moved from depressed status to an average level of socioeconomic development. ^[10]

In Ivanovo Region, the loss was mourned: Sokolsky was called the jewel of the region, while in Nizhny Novgorod Region it became the forty-first district on the outskirts. Ivanovo journalist Mikhail Kolchinsky, who visited several years after the separation, wrote that the forests were being logged and agriculture was in decline; Tatyana Podolskaya, chair of the veterans' council, who had moved to the district in 1995, relayed the words of residents: supplies had improved, the economy had become more dynamic, and the Sokolskoye shipyard had "gotten back on its feet." ^[11]

The people of Ivanovo loved Sokolskoye and admired the beauty of the Volga lands. People came here to fish and hunt. There were strong agricultural enterprises here

From District to Okrug

By a law of Nizhny Novgorod Region dated June 2, 2014, all settlements of Sokolsky Municipal District were merged, and from 2015 it has existed as Sokolsky Urban Okrug. On October 31, 2024, the Legislative Assembly granted nine of the region's fifteen urban okrugs the status of municipal okrugs: under the law, a territory may be classified as an urban okrug only if no fewer than two-thirds of its population live in cities, whereas in Sokolsky the figure is just over half. From January 1, 2025, it has been Sokolsky Municipal Okrug — even though the word "district" has remained in everyday use and on the okrug's own pages. ^[1][12]

The coat of arms is entered in the State Heraldic Register under number 1049. The shield is divided by a silver wavy line: on azure, a golden ancient vessel with a bow ornament in the form of a turned falcon's head, one sail, and a weather vane; on green, a golden walking bear. The vessel recalls the shipyard; the looking-back falcon alludes to the past of the Sokolsky land and to its very name; the bear represents the region's natural wealth; the wavy line and azure stand for the Gorky Reservoir; and the green stands for agriculture, forestry, and fur farming. ^[1]

Population

The population is declining, and declining rapidly: over twenty-three years the district has lost a third of its residents. Rural settlements are shrinking faster than urban ones — at the 2010 census, 64 of the 242 rural localities had no inhabitants at all. Among the urban okrugs of the region as they stood at the 2021 census, Sokolsky was the least populated. ^[13][14][15]

What the District Lives By

The economic mix has taken shape around shipbuilding, woodworking and forestry, agriculture, light and food industry, and printing. Timber remains the primary resource: Sokolsky is the southern edge of the taiga, where pine, spruce, and larch are harvested, and the green field of the district's coat of arms is explicitly described as a symbol of its agricultural, forestry, and fur-farming activities. ^[1][16]

In recent years, tourism has been added to the mix. The shores of the Gorky Sea have filled up with glamping sites: Yurkinskiy Mys and the Tochka Nemo yacht park near the village of Yurkino, and Bereg Grifona with its tent lodges in a pine forest near the village of Kudrino. The regional tourism portal also points to another argument in the area's favor: in 2004, Sokolsky was recognized as the most ecologically clean district in Russia. ^[3]

The Carpenters' School

The district's best-known venture grew out of the timber trade. In late 2005, Nizhny Novgorod entrepreneur Dmitry Zotikov was negotiating with Norwegians over the supply of houses built from half-log timber, and the immediate question was who would construct them using Norwegian technique. A craftsman named Georg Fuller arrived from Lillehammer, and on January 25, 2006, the Taiga Carpenters' School opened at the Taiga company's premises. Fuller's student Valery Kharchev from Chkalovsk became the first instructor of Norwegian log-building, while the first Norwegian axes — heavy ones, used for hewing — were bought from meat choppers at the Kanavinsky Market in Nizhny Novgorod and reworked "à la norge." ^[16]

Students came from all over the country, from Sakhalin to Murmansk. A group numbered five to eight people, the largest sixteen; the course lasted a month, ninety percent of the time was hands-on practice, and over that month the group would build a bathhouse or a gazebo, which was then sold to cover the cost of materials. Over nine years, Taiga delivered more than twenty log structures to Norwegian clients, roughly the same number to Czech buyers, two houses went to Germany and one to France, a hundred and fifty houses were built for Russian customers, and on top of that six wooden churches and a chapel. ^[16]

In September 2009, Sokolskoye hosted Russia's first wooden architecture festival. At the Plotnitskiye Zabavy ("Carpenters' Games"), Norwegian Georg Fuller and Russian carpenter Nikolay Maltsev held an axe duel, the head of the Sokolsky administration Igor Bobrov looked for volunteers willing to race at wood-splitting, craftsman Yuri Spirin demonstrated how to knock together a traditional Russian boat called a Sokolka from scrap materials in a single day — the very boat from which the settlement's name may well derive — while two masters argued over which roof was better, a turf one or one made of wooden shingles. ^[17]

You need to look at the world a little differently — everyone keeps saying "crisis, crisis." There is no crisis where you take matters into your own hands.

What to See

The settlement stands on a high bank, and its main sight is the sea itself: near the Sokolskoye pier the Gorky Reservoir spreads at its widest, and on the horizon lies Ivanovo Region. Adjacent to Lenin Square are an embankment, swings, and a sculpture called "Five Seas." ^[3]

• The Sokolsky People's Local History Museum, housed in an early 20th-century wooden building that once belonged to a merchant named Tsvetkov (15 Rabochaya Street): peasant everyday life, early printed books, spinning wheels, a baby cradle, and a well-preserved white tiled stove ^[3]
• A second local history museum (2 Zarechnaya Street) — covering the Great Patriotic War, the region's nature, the Sokolsky shipyard, and folk art; it also displays wooden sculptures by Viktor Kosulin ^[3]
• The Kostroma blind carving tradition is a close relative of the Gorodets style, featuring the same lions, "pharaohs," and dense foliage; a window surround made by master craftsman Emelyan Zirin is kept in the museum, while his house still stands in the selo of Yablonnoye ^[3][4]
• Victory Park on the site of the Musin-Pushkin estate: a 1960s memorial complex with a book of remembrance, busts of heroes, and an obelisk with cranes — the work of frontline veteran and sculptor Viktor Kosulin ^[3]
• Lenin Monument on Lenin Square, created by Ivan Lukin: a flag rendered in fine mosaic is unfurled behind the bust; the same sculptor made the monument to Alexander Nevsky in Gorodets ^[3]
• The Church of the Icon of the Mother of God "Joy of All Who Sorrow" on Naberezhnaya Street — the settlement's active parish church ^[1]
• The Assumption Church in the selo of Dorofeyevo (1812) — built on the site of the Uspensky-Dorofeyeva men's hermitage ^[3][4]
• The Resurrection Church in the selo of Voskresenye — 19th-century Classicism with vivid frescoes and icons from 1912 brought from Mount Athos ^[3]
• St. Nicholas Church in Dresvishchi and the Church of St. John the Baptist in Bolvanitsy — in ruins, but with surviving frescoes on biblical themes ^[3]
• Trinity Church in Kargin (1828), Ascension Church in Tsykin (1822), Resurrection Church in Shirmaksha (1794), Transfiguration Church in Pelegovo ^[4]
• A water mill on the Shirmaksha River near the village of Fateyevo, the Golikov chapel and Golikov springs in the village of Tarakanovo, and a pillar chapel in Rameshki ^[4]
• The "Tayga" carpenters' school in the urban-type settlement of Sokolskoye ^[16][17]
• The Sokolsky stadium and the Sokol sports and fitness complex ^[4]
• The uninhabited village of Bochkari, which locals in the district describe as a place of mystery ^[4]

Stones in the Forests

Near the village of Zubovo, at the bottom of a ravine, lies a granite monolith known as Brunikhin Kamen (Brunikha's Stone). It bears no signs of working, apart from a small notch in the middle, and local legend offers a simple explanation for its position: the stone once stood at the edge of the ravine, a woman named Brunikha climbed down to pick mushrooms, and the boulder rolled in after her. The outline of its trail is still visible on the ravine slope today. ^[18]

Deep in the forest near the village of Yatovo stands a complex known as the "urochishche stone sanctuary" and the "stone with a face." In the 1990s, local historian Nikolay Morokhin reached it with a guide from Yatovo; test pits dug together with archaeologist Nikolay Gribov yielded only charcoal — traces of either forest fires or ancient campfires. Through Morokhin's efforts, the site was recognized as a natural monument of local significance. The centerpiece of the complex is a boulder about a meter across with an elongated protrusion running west to east, in which researchers discerned the "face." Several more large stones lie nearby, and together they vaguely resemble a diagram of the Solar System. A ring of about thirty small stones surrounding the centerpiece was clearly laid recently — the stones have not yet sunk into the ground. ^[18]

But if you really want to find it, you will

Treasures, Diamonds, and Lake Tekun

The largest boulder in these parts lies several kilometers from the village of Mamontovo. It was discovered in 1990 during road construction — the builders were unable to deal with the giant. Later, there were plans to move it to the center of the village as a war memorial: workers dug around it, wrapped it in cable, and brought in a sixteen-ton crane — and still could not budge it. So it stayed put, gradually sinking deeper from the many excavations around it: according to an old belief, great power or treasure is hidden beneath large stones. ^[18]

Lake Tekun, lost in the marshes, is surrounded by grim tales of bandits, drowning victims, and buried treasure. One thing is known for certain: a cobblestone road leads to it, and nobody in the district can say who built it or why. The Sokolskoye lands fall within the zone of influence of the Vorotilov Uplift — a geological anomaly centered on the village of Vorotilovo in Koverninsky District, where deep-lying rock comes close to the surface and concentric rings radiate from the center in satellite imagery. After drilling into the uplift at several points, geologists found diamonds — industrial grade, not gem quality. ^[18]

Nature under Protection

The district's riverbanks, islands, and wetlands host an unusually rich variety of bird colonies for the region. Nine sites here hold the status of natural monuments of regional significance — most of them designated by an order of the Nizhny Novgorod Region administration dated November 13, 1996, while the gull colony at Zabolotnoye was placed under protection even earlier by Ivanovo authorities under resolutions from 1993. ^[19][20][22]

Ptichiy Island and others

Ptichiy Island lies approximately eight hundred metres from the left bank of the reservoir: about 400 metres long, a hundred metres wide, with shores rising one to one and a half metres above the water and a maximum elevation of three metres. The southern half of the island is covered by a reed-grass heath, the northern half by young regrowth of pine, birch, aspen, and black alder. A survey conducted in July 1995 recorded 150 pairs of common gulls, 150 pairs of common terns, four pairs of herring gulls (a species rare for the Region), four nests of tufted ducks, and a pair of Eurasian oystercatchers nesting here. From 1 April to 1 August, access to the island is permitted only by special authorization; mushroom and berry picking and scientific work are allowed. ^[19]

• Tekunskoye Bog with Lake Tekun and the surrounding forest ^[20]
• The forest and bog complex around the former settlement of Pyatiletka ^[20]
• The forest tract near the settlement of Novo-Shomokhtinsky in the Unzha Forestry District ^[20]
• Shelekhonskoye (Kozlovskoye) Bog and the adjacent forest tract ^[20]
• The commemorative pine planting "100 Years of Lenin" ^[20]

Sources

1. sokolskoe.nobl.ru — Official website of the local self-government bodies of Sokolsky Municipal Okrug, Nizhny Novgorod Region — About the Okrug (archive)
2. sok-t.ru — State Budgetary Professional Educational Institution "Sokolsky College of Service Industry and Entrepreneurship" — official website — Historical Background (archive)
3. nn-tourist.ru — Tourist portal of Nizhny Novgorod Region — Sokolskoye (archive)
4. autotravel-nn.ru — Autotravel-NN — a guide to the sights of Nizhny Novgorod Region — Sights of Sokolskoye (archive)
5. soksud.ru — JSC "Sokolskaya Shipyard" — the company's official website — Sokolskaya Shipyard. About the Company (archive)
6. portnews.ru — PortNews — a trade publication on shipping and shipbuilding — Sokolskaya Shipyard launches the torpedo-recovery boat "TL-2202," Project 1388NZTM
7. volga37.ru — Volga newspaper (Yuryevets, Ivanovo Region), "Local History" column — History That Went Under Water (archive)
8. autotravel-nn.ru — Autotravel-NN — a guide to the sights of Nizhny Novgorod Region — The Gorky Sea, Reservoir, or Gore-More in Nizhny Novgorod Region (archive)
9. web.archive.org — Information and Analytical System "Specially Protected Natural Areas of Russia" — database of specially protected natural areas (archived copy) — Sokolsky (state nature reserve) (archive)
10. NIA "Nizhny Novgorod" — Sokolsky District marks the tenth anniversary of joining Nizhny Novgorod Region
11. ivgazeta.ru — Ivanovo Newspaper — regional publication of Ivanovo Region — A Land Kindred to the People of Ivanovo
12. NIA "Nizhny Novgorod" — Status changed for nine okrugs in Nizhny Novgorod Region (archive)
13. 52.rosstat.gov.ru — Nizhegorodstat — results of the 2010 All-Russian Population Census, collection "Population Size and Distribution in Nizhny Novgorod Region" (archive)
14. 52.rosstat.gov.ru — Nizhegorodstat — results of the 2020 All-Russian Population Census — Population Size and Distribution in Nizhny Novgorod Region as of October 1, 2021 (archive)
15. 52.rosstat.gov.ru — Nizhegorodstat — current population estimate — Estimate of the Permanent Population by Municipal and Urban Okrugs of Nizhny Novgorod Region as of January 1, 2025 (archive)
16. biz360.ru — small-business publication, first-person account by the school's founder — Carpenters' School: Two Incarnations of One Business Idea (archive)
17. Kommersant (Volga Region) — Ogonyok magazine No. 17 (5095), Kommersant Publishing House — They Took Up the Axe
18. MK — Nizhny Novgorod — "MK in Nizhny Novgorod" — report from an expedition to Sokolsky District — Boulders Found in Nizhny Novgorod Forests May Be a Sanctuary of a Vanished People (archive)
19. web.archive.org — Information and Analytical System "Specially Protected Natural Areas of Russia" — database of specially protected natural areas (archived copy) — Ptichiy Island (archive)
20. web.archive.org — Information and Analytical System "Specially Protected Natural Areas of Russia" — list of protected areas of the district (archived copy) — Sokolsky District (archive)
21. Nizhegorodskaya Pravda — regional publication — The "Meteor" from Nizhny Novgorod to Yaroslavl Will Stop at Sokolskoye (archive)
22. web.archive.org — Information and Analytical System "Specially Protected Natural Areas of Russia" — database of specially protected natural areas (archived copy) — Water Body with a Colony of Black-Headed Gulls in the Village of Zabolotnoye (archive)
23. web.archive.org — Information and Analytical System "Specially Protected Natural Areas of Russia" — database of specially protected natural areas (archived copy) — Pine Forest Tract with a Grey Heron Colony near the Village of Vyazoviki (archive)
24. web.archive.org — Information and Analytical System "Specially Protected Natural Areas of Russia" — database of specially protected natural areas (archived copy) — Pine Forest Tract on the Shore of the Gorky Reservoir near the Village of Pelegovo (archive)