Uren

Uren lies in the forest country of the Usta and Vetluga, long inhabited by Mari communities. The name Uren is of local origin; another name, Tryokhsvyatskoye, came from the wooden Church of the Three Hierarchs. A census of 1719 describes it as a newly settled village under both names.

Peasants from other districts and Old Believers seeking refuge from persecution settled in the surrounding forests, where some Old Believers lived in secluded cells near the village. The village grew into a trading centre on a route between the middle Volga and the northern river basins. Its wooden church was rebuilt in stone in 1829, a sign of the growth of a community that had begun as a small settlement among forest clearings.