The village Tolvuja was first mentioned at the historical documents of XIV century, under the year 1375. The settlement is one of the most ancient russion colonies on a shore of the Onego lake, located on the peninsula Zaonezhie. At the beginning of XVII century there was 33 villages around the Tolvuja pogost (before the banishment of Marfa Romanova to Tolvuja).
The acres of the pogost spreaded to 60 verst (1 verst = 3500 ft. ) around. There were 3 churches in pogost, two of them: The church of Jesus Christ passionsufferer Egoriy (st. George the Victor) with the side-altar devoted to Nicholas the Wonderworker, and the winter Trinity church — both wooden churches located in Tolvuja, but the third church of Our Ladymas was built beyond Povenetskiy bay.
The distance from Moscow to Tolvuja was 1200 verst. No roads were built, in summer people got to the settlement by water, in winter - by sledge, but it was too hard to get there in the off-season period. May be, that is the reason for chosing Tolvuja as a place of an imprisonment for Ksenia Romanova by Boris Godunov.
