Pudoga

Pudoga, later known as Pudozh, lies on the Vodla east of Lake Onega. It occupied an old route from Novgorod across Onega and up the Vodla toward the forests and rivers leading to the White Sea. Recorded as Pudoga in the fourteenth century, the settlement grew around this waterway. In 1785 Catherine II raised it to the status of a town and made it a district centre in the Olonets lands.