Volkona

Volkona was the centre of a small principality on the river now called the Volkhonka, a tributary of the Upa. The Volkonsky princes took their name from this wooded district, one of the appanages that emerged from the lands of Tarusa. Archaeological sites near the river preserve traces of the fortified centre and settlements of the principality.

In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries the Volkona district stretched along the Upa’s right bank and its smaller tributaries. Ivan III took the family’s old possession, but Boris Godunov later returned Volkona to one of the princes for service as an envoy to Crimea. The Volkonskys continued to serve as commanders and officials, carrying the name of their ancestral river far beyond their original estate.