Staraya Ladoga given to Leningrad artists as a base zone for the rest and creative work. The restoring works continued 15 years from 1946. But Leningrad artists began to arrive to Staraya Ladoga from 1940s. It became a source of inspiration for Sergei Osipov, Gleb Savinov, Nikolai Timkov, Arseny Semionov and many others for many years. A House of creativity «Staraya Ladoga» began to work permanently in the beginning of 1960s after the finish of the restoration. It was an important center of the art life of Russia for 30 years. Such artists as Evsey Moiseenko, Alexander Samokhvalov, Vecheslav Zagonek, Dmitry Belyaev,
Lake Ladoga In his opinion, the primary name of the lake was "old source", associated to the open sea, in contrast to the name of the Neva River (flowing from Lake Ladoga) which would derive from the German expression for "the new". Through the intermediate form "*Aldaugja", cam about, referring to "Ladoga (city)". The lake has an average surface area of 17,891 km (excluding the islands). Its north-to-south length is 219 km and its average width is 83 km; the average depth is 51 m, although it reaches a maximum of 230 m in the north-western part. Basin area: 276,000 km, volume: