Staraya Russa

Staraya Russa is an old Russian town located 99 km south of Veliky Novgorod. It is a quay on the Polist River (Lake Ilmen basin). It is the third largest town in Novgorod Oblast. Staraya Russa is a balneologic resort, celebrated for its mineral springs used for baths, drinking, and inhalations; medicinal silt mud of the Lake Verkhneye and Lake Sredneye and mud from artificial reservoirs. A summer residence of the Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoevsky, who wrote two novels there (The Brothers Karamazov and The Possessed), is open to visitors as a museum. Many Churches built in the 15th-17th centuries. still stand.