Cherdyn is an ancient Russian town located in the north of the Perm Territory on the right bank of River Kolva. Cherdyn is the chief town of Cherdyn municipal district and is the oldest town of the Ural Region.

The population of Cherdyn makes 5365 people (as of 2009). The town takes the area of 15 square km, and around 30 square km together with its suburbs.

The remote town is located at the distance of 102 km to the nearest railway station Solikamsk, and 308 km to the city of Perm, the administrative center of the Perm Territory.

Cherdyn is one of the most ancient towns of the Ural Region and is on the List of Historical Cities of Russia. It was mostly in Cherdyn, where the mysterious artifacts of the so-called Perm Animal Style were found in plenty.

However, the exact date of the town’s foundation remains unknown today. Scientists assume that the first people settled in this area in the 8th century. In those bygone times Cherdyn was the centre of the Great Perm Region. All the trading routes to Iran, Nizhni Novgorod, the peoples of the North, etc. passed in this place. The basic local goods in those days were furs and silver.

In those far-away years Cherdyn was called Perm the Great, after the name of the historical Great Perm Region.

The town’s economy was mainly based on timber industry.

Today Cherdyn, thanks to its extremely rich and ancient history has a great tourist potential.

Cherdyn District is one of the most interesting areas regarding the preservation and variety of historical and cultural heritage sights. 112 archeology monuments (the most well-known of them are Iskorsky and Troitsk sites of ancient settlements), 178 architecture and town-planning monuments, 2 historical monuments and 1 monument of monumental art are situated in its territory. Besides, Cherdyn itself has the status of “a historical place of the Russian Federation”, being a well-preserved ancient town surrounded by ancient settlements, such as Pokcha, Vilgort, and Nyrob.

Sights:

Cherdyn Museum of Local Lore. In 1899 a general educational museum was opened in Cherdyn to commemorate the 100th anniversary since A.S.Pushkin's birth. Same year an archaeological museum was founded in the town. In 1918 both museums were merged into the single A.S.Pushkin General Educational Museum, renamed into Cherdyn Museum of Local Lore in 1922.

The museum funds keep more than 110 thousand exhibits and include the following collections: archaeological, Perm wooden sculpture, old printed and manuscript books of the 16th-17th centuries, iconography and ethnography collections, as well as treasures of oriental coins. The museum has two branches: Exhibition Hall and the Museum of History of Faith.

Divya Cave is the largest karstic cave in the Ural Region. Its total extent makes 3.2 kilometers. The nature sanctuary is located in Cherdyn District, on the right bank of River Kolva, 10 km to the north of Nyrob.

Speaking about the local sights, one should mention River Beryozovaya, which every year becomes a place of pilgrimage for boating lovers, and, certainly, Chusovskoye Lake, the biggest one in the Perm Territory.

Nearby there are two unique hydraulic engineering monuments. The first one - Pechyorsky Volok (i.e. portage) - was built by ancient Vikings in the area of Chusovskoye Lake. The second one — the hundred-kilometer Ekaterina's Channel – was laid under the decree of Catherine the Great in 1822 and connected two great rivers - Kama and Northern Dvina – into a single transport system.