Afanasyevo

Afanasyevo lies in the forested Vyatka country of the upper Kama basin, where farming, logging, hunting and fishing shaped local life. It was first recorded in 1607 as the pogost of Zyuzdino-Afanasyevskoye, a parish centre with a wooden church, and its precise foundation date is unknown. The parish centred on the church took shape in the mid-seventeenth century, and a charter of 1681 gave permission to build a new church. The wooden church burned down in 1729, and a second one was built in 1730. The people of the surrounding villages were a mixed population of Permians and Russians who lived by farming and forest work.