Usty

Usty lies on the Zhizdra, among the wooded lands south-west of Kozelsk. In the eighteenth century the village belonged to the Bruce family; an estate description of 1782 names Count Yakov Bruce as its owner. Its peasants paid dues and worked both the fields and the district’s industrial works. The Zhizdra flows eastward to the Oka, linking this stretch of forest and meadow with the river country of Kozelsk.