Bereznik

Bereznik is a village in the Vaga country of Russia’s northern Pomorye, in the Ust-Padenga area not far from Shenkursk. The name means a stand of birches, and it recurs among many northern settlements. Here the taiga is broken by meadows along the Vaga, the largest tributary of the Northern Dvina, whose valley was the most heavily settled part of the region.

Shenkursk, the nearest town, appears in documents of Novgorod merchants in 1229, and in 1315 a Novgorod posadnik bought it. Later it passed to Moscow, and in 1640–1643 the tsar ordered a new fortress to be built there. Villages like Bereznik lived by farming, hay meadows, forest products and river transport on the Vaga, which froze in mid-November and stayed under ice until late April.