Valdai is a lake town on high, wet, wooded ground halfway between Moscow and Saint Petersburg, and for three centuries travellers have stopped here because they had to. The Valdai Hills, which are really more of a rolling upland about two hundred metres above sea level, are the birthplace of rivers: the Volga, the Western Dvina and the Dnieper all start within a short distance. The town of eighteen thousand sits on the shore of Lake Valdai, a deep, clear lake in a bowl of forest, and the surrounding national park protects a mix of pine, spruce and bog.
The lake's island holds the Iversky Monastery, founded in the 1650s by Patriarch Nikon, who wanted a place to rival the great Orthodox sites on Mount Athos and modelled the buildings on them. Its white walls and golden domes reflect in the water, and it is reached by a short boat ride or a causeway. Nikon later fell from power, but the monastery stayed and was restored after periods of neglect.
Valdai's other claim to fame is its bells. In the eighteenth century, craftsmen here cast small bronze bells for the horse-drawn mail coaches on the road between the capitals, and the bells became so closely connected with the town that they are still called Valdai bells. They rang on the harness of troikas, and a small museum shows how they were cast. You can buy a modern copy in a shop, and its sound is bright and clear, a ringing that carries across the lake.
The old Tsarist road, known as the Sovereigns' Road, ran through here, with post stations where horses were changed. The riding in the area is easy, along tree-lined roads past villages with wooden houses, over low hills, with lakes appearing and vanishing between the pines. The surface is mixed, with good asphalt on the main road and patches of rough tarmac on the lanes. Elk and deer are common at dusk, and trucks use the highway at speed.
There is fuel in town, and it is a good place for a meal, with fish from the lake, mushroom dishes in season and the sweet baked goods Russians love. Summer is warm and green, with swimming in the lake, and autumn colours are fine from mid September. In winter the snow lies deep and the lake freezes, which turns the whole landscape into a white silence.