Valday is a
town and the
administrative center of
Valdaysky District in
Novgorod Oblast,
Russia, located on the southwestern shore of
Lake Valdayskoye, the biggest one in the set of lakes in the highest region of the
Valdai Hills, on the
M10 Highway connecting
Moscow and
St. Petersburg, from Moscow and from
Veliky Novgorod, the administrative center of the
oblast. Population:
History
It was first mentioned in a chronicle in 1495. At the time, it was a part of Derevskaya Pyatina of the
Novgorod Republic. The growth of Valday was facilitated by construction of a road connecting
Novgorod to
Central Russia and by the foundation of the
Valday Iversky Monastery in 1653, which became a major cultural center. The famous monastery, built under the auspices of
Patriarch Nikon in the 1650s, is located on one of the islands of
Lake Valdayskoye.