Autumn in the valley of the Oredezh River

The Oredezh River is one of the most picturesque rivers in our region. The length of the river is a little less than 200 kilometres, some parts of the riverbed are geological natural monuments, in other places the scenery has not received official monument status, but is no less beautiful. One of the protected natural monuments is the outcrops of rocks of the Arukyula horizon of the Middle Devonian. To be honest, I have just read about the Arukyula horizon of the Middle Devonian on the Internet, but locals and tourists call these outcrops more simply - Devonian sandstones. Bright red cliffs of the Oredezh river canyon reach in some places the height of 20 metres.

On the banks of the Oredezh River there are several holiday villages. Beautiful landscapes, healing spring water and unique microclimate have long attracted city dwellers looking for summer holidays. There are two large holiday villages, Siversky and Vyritsa, which are the most convenient to get to from the city; railway stations were built near these villages in the 19th century.

Both settlements have a rich history and existed long before the construction of the city of St. Petersburg. Written references to these settlements date back to the 15th century.The census books of the Novgorod land have preserved information about these ancient settlements.But the time of prosperity for these settlements came in the XIX century.I chose Siversky settlement for my walk because I have recently learnt that pupils and teachers of the school in Siversky settlement have equipped an ecological trail in the valley of the Oredezh River.

This eco-trail has its own name, it is called the School of Life eco-trail. The beginning of this eco-trail is located two kilometres from the railway station, near the local history museum, which is called ‘Dacha Capital’. Indeed, so many famous people holidayed in the village that a whole museum was created to keep the memory alive.

I looked at the map to see which direction I should take to get to the museum by the shortest way, but I couldn't resist turning off onto picturesque paths along the way, and found myself near the beginning of the trail suddenly: I turned to one of the bridges over the Oredezh River to admire the scenery, and it turned out that one of the points of entry to the trail was near this bridge.

I came to the museum at the very end of the walk - after I had walked along the wooden planks and log paths of the eco-trail and admired the Devonian sandstone outcrops.The museum is located in a wooden house that belonged to the artist and architect Ivan Golmdorf and was built according to his own design as a ‘guest cottage’, where friends of the artist stayed when they came to visit their hospitable host. The building is now under partial restoration, but the museum is open. I did not go into the museum this time, because it was already early autumn evening, and I had to go back to the station.