Dead Sea towns around the lake. These towns had drinking water from the Ein Feshcha springs and other sweetwater springs in the vicinity. Intimately connected with the Judean wilderness to its northwest and west, the Dead Sea was a place of escape and refuge. The remoteness of the region attracted Greek Orthodox monks since the Byzantine era. Their monasteries, such as Saint George in Wadi Kelt and Mar Saba in the Judaean Desert, are places of pilgrimage. In the 19th century the River Jordan and the Dead Sea were explored by boat primarily by Christopher Costigan in 1835, Thomas Howard Molyneux in
Moskva River Moskva River The Moskva River (, "Moskva-reka") is a river of western Russia. It rises about west of Moscow, and flows roughly east through the Smolensk and Moscow Oblasts, passing through central Moscow. About south east of Moscow, at the city of Kolomna, it flows into the Oka River, itself a tributary of the Volga, which ultimately flows into the Caspian Sea. "Moskva" and "Moscow" are two different renderings of the same Russian word "Москва". The city is named after the river. Finno-Ugric Merya and Muroma people, who originally inhabited the area, called the river "Mustajoki". It has been suggested