Get an express bus to Staryoe Kosino and you'll find yourself in a world steeped in legend and one that begins with the glaciers of the Ice Age and ends in swamps and marshes. It is here that the intrepid traveler will find three great lakes, all of them deep and fantastically clear. The ever-pragmatic Peter the Great, never one to miss an opportunity if he saw one, liked the lakes too and built one of his shipyards there.

The Svyatoye (Holy), Beloye (White) and Chernoye (Black) Lakes are part of the famous Menschera Lowland. Stretching to the Vladimir and Ryazan regions, it is an area of rolling landscape, silvery woods and watery places, whose borders reach to only five miles of the Moscow Ring Road.

Locals say that they occasionally find flint-headed arrows, which archeologists assert is proof that the lands were inhabited in the late Stone Age. There are also burial mounds, silent witnesses of some future age yet to reveal its secrets.

The biggest of the lakes, Svyatoye, is completely circular in form and outwardly resembles a swamp. But don't let that put you off. Having negotiated the boggy bits, any would-be bather can have a ball in 32 meters of crystal clear water. Additionally, it has always been a place of pilgrimage. At one time there was a chapel on the lakeside that suffered at the hands of the Bolsheviks. But before that, according to legend, there used to be a wooden church surrounded by thick forest. It is said to have sunk into the ground accompanied by sounds of spiritual singing to form a lake, thus deterring the advance of the Tatar horde led by Khan Batyi.

The holiest relic of Staryoe Kosino is the Icon of the Blessed Virgin Mary. It was brought to Russia from Modena in Italy by Peter the Great's chum, Count Boris Sheremetyev. Kosino got it in 1717 when the Tsar presented it to the church to commemorate the practice trips he had made round Beloye Lake in his famous sailing boat. The wooden church of Nikolai the Miracle Worker, probably built on the lakeside at the same time as Kosino, acquired the status of the Tsar's estate.

Like most churches in Russia it has had a checkered history. In 1856 it was restored and fortified with a stone foundation. It was closed by the Communists in the 1930s, and then partially destroyed by fire in 1947. Eventually restoration was completed in1993 when it was re-consecrated.

The other place of interest in Kosino is the Cathedral of Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, built on the edge of the Beloye Lake in the 1820s with funds provided by a Moscow merchant named Dmitry Lukhmanov. The cathedral is part of a single complex, which includes a belfry and a refectory, all surrounded by a beautiful white-stone wall decorated with figured turrets.

The belfry is the tallest building in Staryoe Kosino and consists of three levels. The first accommodates a church (yet another Nikolai the Miracle Worker) and on the second and the third levels you will see the bells.

Of course, the Communists did not spare much of that either. Most of the clergy was arrested in the 1930s and many died in Stalin's prison camps. Icons were torn down from the walls and burned to ashes on the banks of the Beloye Lake. The bells were knocked down and smashed, except two that have miraculously survived to this day.

The name Staroye Kosino fits a town that now looks quite old. But there was a time when it was a rich and prosperous settlement, populated by merchants living in huge mansions built in the 19th and early 20th century. Today there is little left of pre-revolutionary prosperity. Shabby dachas line up behind ramshackle fences scattered round Beloye Lake. Nevertheless there are nice beaches there and you can easily rent a boat. In summer it gets quite crowded, but in autumn, peace descends once again with only fishermen and artists to ruffle the tranquility of their surroundings.

Even though it is something of an out-of-the-way place, you can actually find a bite to eat there, either in a cafe on the bank of the Beloye Lake or at the restaurant next to the Kosino Factory.

How to get there
From metro station Vykhino take express bus #602 to station "Staroye Kosino" (5 rubles) or regular bus #602 to the junction station (3 rubles).