Sol Velikaya

Sol Velikaya owed its name and importance to its salt springs. It first appears in 1214, when the princes of Rostov and Vladimir contended over the local sources of brine. The settlement later became known as Bolshiye Soli, the Great Salts. Salt works operated here from the fifteenth century into the middle of the seventeenth; at the end of the sixteenth century nineteen boiling houses were recorded. In later years the village was also known for woodcarvers and masons.