Kovda

Kovda stands near the mouth of the river of the same name on the White Sea. Its Pomor settlement was known by 1542, at the end of a long chain of lakes and rivers running from northern Karelia. In 1589 a Swedish detachment attacked Kovda, burning the church and houses and killing inhabitants. A wooden church of St Nicholas was subsequently recorded here; the present church was built in 1705. Fishing and the sea connected the village to the coastal world of the White Sea.