Staraya Russa lies just south of Lake Ilmen in Novgorod Oblast, and it is one of the oldest towns in the region, with a history that goes back to the tenth or eleventh century. Its name means Old Russa, to distinguish it from the nearby Novgorod, and it was built around the salt springs that rise in the area. Salt production was the town's main business for centuries, and the Novgorod merchants who controlled the trade grew rich. In the nineteenth century a mud and mineral water spa grew up beside the salt works, and it remains a health resort today.
The town's greatest literary association is with Fyodor Dostoevsky, who bought a house here in the 1870s and spent his summers in it for several years. He wrote much of The Brothers Karamazov in Staraya Russa, and the town appears in the novel as Skotoprigonyevsk. The house, a modest wooden building beside the Pererytitsa river, is now a museum, with the writer's study and furniture preserved. Walking along the river, with the same low bridges and willow trees, gives a sense of the life he knew. Much of the town was destroyed during the Second World War, when the front line ran through it for two years, and the center was rebuilt in the Soviet period.
The landscape is flat, green and watery, with marshes, small rivers and wide skies. Lake Ilmen, one of the largest lakes in Russia, lies a short distance north, and in spring the river floods across the fields. The roads are mostly modest, with gentle curves and frost heaves, and summer traffic is light. The Valdai Hills rise to the east, offering more varied riding. Autumn is a fine season, with golden birch and clear air.
Practical help is easy to find. The town of about thirty-four thousand has fuel stations, a number of shops and cafes, and a few hotels or spa guesthouses. It is a comfortable place to stop between Novgorod and Valdai. Mosquitoes can be thick in summer near the water.
If you stop at the Dostoevsky house, ask to see the garden. The writer is said to have loved it, and the quiet there is the same as in his time.