The tract used to be called the road connecting large trading settlements and passing through small settlements. There were many such roads in ancient times, of course, that now there are more of them, but new municipal roads often pass outside settlements in completely different places.
One of these roads is the Nikolsky tract, which connected Veliky Ustyug and Nikolsk, or rather, this tract passed right from Arkhangelsk to Moscow! In confirmation of this, in many places this tract has been preserved paved. Old carriers told how they drove along this tract. To get from Veliky Ustyug at least, for example, to Kich-Gorodok, it could take several days during the off-season.
I decided to try to drive along the old road by car...at least for a small section...and try to feel that era.
My journey began with those villages that I had not yet explored in detail. Yes, I deliberately left the entire chain unexplored, so that later I could drive along the old road, that is, combine business with pleasure. Once I already saw the paved "canvas" of the old tract in Skorodum - so let's start with it...that is, we will continue!
In Skorodum, throughout the entire settlement and even beyond it, the road is paved with large stones. Even in the coppice, the stones are felt by the wheels, and in one place I even struck a stretcher: on a slight rise, a hole was washed in streams. But I'm in an SUV! The adventure begins right from the start. At the entrance to the village of Upper Yakutino, completely off-road begins. The swampy exit to the main road had to be bypassed.
Upper Yakutino is a village in the Velikoustyugsky district of the Vologda region as part of the Tregubovsky rural settlement. All subsequent villages will only change their belonging to a rural settlement, but the district and region will be the same.
The distance to the regional center is 27 km. There are about fifty inhabitants, permanent and even less. The prefix Upper usually refers to the flow of a river, but in this case it means a location on a hill.
The village is divided into two parts - the older one, where there are wooden houses and even five-walls, and the Soviet one, where one-story panel barracks stand along the street.
Due to its favorable location on a hill, in the village of Upper Yakutino there is a television station with a tower that broadcasts to the entire area.
Further, the old tract goes into a more overgrown forest, but fortunately, there is a detour through the cultivated field to the next village.
So people, though occasionally, still pass along the old road ..
To be continued...