St. George's Church, Staraya Ladoga St. George's Church, Staraya Ladoga St. George's Church () in the selo of Staraya Ladoga, Volkhovsky District, Leningrad Oblast, Russia is one of the oldest churches of Russia, dating from the second half of the 12th century. It is one of the few surviving pre-Mongol buildings in Russia. It contains the frescoes of the 12th century, extremely rare in Russia. The church is located within the Staraya Ladoga Fortress, on the left bank of the Volkhov River. The building was designated an architectural monument of federal significance (#4710025007). Staraya Ladoga was the first seat of Rurik in 862, and, after
Lake Ladoga The Germanic toponym (Aldeigja → Aldoga) was soon borrowed by the Slavic population and transformed by means of the Old Russian metathesis "ald- → lad-" to . The Old Norse intermediary word between Finnish and Old Russian word is fully supported by archeology, since the Scandinavians first appeared in Ladoga in the early 750s, that is, a couple of decades before the Slavs. Other theories about the origin of the name derive it from "wave" and "wavy"; or from the Russian dialectal word алодь, meaning "open lake, extensive water field". Eugene Helimski by contrast, offers an etymology rooted in German.