Nerekhta is one of those small Russian towns that most travellers pass without noticing, which is a shame, because it is among the older places in this part of the country, mentioned in chronicles from the early thirteenth century. It sits on a small river of the same name in Kostroma Oblast, on the road and railway between Kostroma and Ivanovo, and has around twenty-five thousand people. Like several towns in the region it made its early fortune from salt, and later from linen weaving and trade.
What you see when you ride in is a low town of brick merchant houses, wooden cottages with fretwork window frames, and an unusually large number of churches for its size, some restored and gleaming, others still waiting with grass growing from their cornices. There is no single grand monument, just a lot of layers: the trading rows near the centre, quiet lanes of timber houses, and a skyline punctuated by domes and bell towers. A slow loop around the centre on the bike, then a walk, gives the best sense of it.
The riding on this stretch of the Kostroma and Ivanovo hills loop is easy-going. The land rises and falls in long, soft waves, mixed forest alternating with fields, and the main road is decent but busy with trucks. Side roads are narrower and rougher, sometimes with sudden broken patches or gravel sections that appear without warning, so it is worth keeping speed in hand on unfamiliar lanes. Late spring brings fresh green and cuckoo calls from the woods; September and early October are the golden season.
For practical purposes Nerekhta is a reliable stop. Fuel stations sit on the approaches, there are grocery stores, a few cafes and canteens offering soup and buckwheat at modest prices, and the town is quiet enough to park without fuss. Kostroma is about forty kilometres north for a bigger choice of hotels and restaurants, and the Volga is close. Nerekhta does not try to impress anyone, which is precisely its charm: a real provincial town, still mostly lived in by people who work there, with its history standing around in plain sight.