Pestovo

About the town. Pestovo is one of the youngest towns in the Novgorod Region, although settlements in the area have a much older history. It is the administrative centre of Pestovo Municipal District and stands on the Mologa River on the eastern spurs of the Valday Hills, 320 km from Veliky Novgorod. The first train passed through Pestovo station in 1919. The station was named after the nearby village of Russkoye Pestovo, two versts away. There are two traditional explanations of the name. One links it to young bears once common in these wild places; the other to local woodworking, especially the making of mortars and pestles. Before the present railway, whose construction began in 1915, the Mologa River was the main transport artery carrying goods toward the country’s industrial centres and into the Vesyegonsk reach of the Rybinsk Reservoir. During the Great Patriotic War, Pestovo and the surrounding area became part of the near-front zone. In summer 1941, trains arrived from Leningrad carrying equipment from garment factories and evacuees. In March of the following year, the 8 March garment factory produced its first goods for the army. On 12 January 1965, by decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR, Pestovo became a town of district subordination. Since 22 December 2004, it has been the administrative centre of the Pestovo urban settlement.