Falenki

The country around Falenki lies in the Cheptsa basin of the Vyatka region. Its early modern history was closely tied to the Verkhochepetsky Monastery of the Exaltation of the Cross. A charter of Tsar Vasily Shuisky, dated 25 February 1608, granted the monastery woodland, hay meadows and fishing rights along both sides of the Cheptsa. Peasant settlements spread across its estate: eight households were recorded in four settlements in 1615, and by 1722 the monastery controlled dozens of villages and clearings, with three mills.

The monastery's wooden buildings were destroyed by fire on 29 May 1769. Its seventeen monks and surviving possessions were transferred to Slobodskoy, while the former estate villages entered neighbouring parishes. In the late eighteenth century, roads linking Slobodskoy and Nolinsk with Glazov strengthened the district's connections with the Urals. Fields, mills, parish churches and overland routes thus defined this forest countryside.