Rukajärvi

Rukajärvi, called Rugozero in Russian, was the centre of a Karelian pogost first recorded in 1565–1566. Its Church of the Transfiguration was consecrated in 1597. In 1611 Karelians from Reboly and Kimasozero took refuge here after Swedish troops attacked their settlements. Fishing and hunting for squirrel and hare supported the peasants in the seventeenth century. By 1703 some were obliged to work at Peter I's mines nearby, and Swedish detachments devastated villages of the district in 1708 during the Great Northern War.