Okulovka

About the town. Okulovka is first mentioned in the 1495 census book of the Derevskaya Pyatina of Novgorod Land. From 1851, Okulovka became a station on the Nikolayevskaya Railway. In the mid-19th century, industrialist V. I. Pasburg founded a writing-paper factory in the village of Parakhino, four versts from Okulovka station. It initially produced wrapping paper from rags and scraps of rope footwear. Later, at the confluence of the Khorenka and Peretna rivers, medical professor N. Bardashevich founded the Kulotino factory producing sackcloth. The settlement around Okulovka station grew quickly. A small brickworks appeared, and the town gained estates and houses belonging to eight landowners, five contractors, twenty merchants, five priests and fifteen police officers. A merchants’ club, a four-year railway school, parish schools and a commercial school were opened. 2 churches of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker and a wooden Church of the Mother of God moved from Mshentsy were built, along with an almshouse, a Peasant House and a small zemstvo hospital with one doctor. By decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR on 12 January 1965, Okulovka received town status through the formal administrative merger of the settlements Parakhino-Poddubye and Okulovka-1.