Kriitinä

Kriitinä, also called Gridino, stands on the Karelian shore of the White Sea. In the early seventeenth century, the Solovetsky Monastery established salt works here as it expanded its holdings along the coast. A permanent village grew up beside the works and the road between Kem and Kola; its inhabitants were recorded as villagers of Gridinskaya Guba in 1694. In the following century Karelians from districts devastated by Swedish raids also settled there.