Borovichi

Borovichi stands on the Msta, among the pine-covered hills that gave the settlement its name. The river connected Novgorod with the Volga basin, but the rapids near the town made the journey difficult. Local pilots knew how to guide vessels through this dangerous stretch, a skill that became a distinctive occupation of the place.

A churchyard at Borovichi appears in the Novgorod survey of 1495; by 1564 it was recorded as a trading settlement. Traffic on the Msta continued to shape its fortunes as goods moved between the northern waterways and the Volga. Catherine II granted Borovichi town status in 1770, and it became the centre of an uyezd three years later. In 1786 a coal adit was opened at the mouth of the Krupa, a tributary of the Msta. The town’s coat of arms recalled the pilots whose work had long carried boats past its rapids.