(Source: http://news.pskovonline.ru/cultura)

Indeed, there is no either one attraction in Gdov in the usual interpretation of this word. Therefore, trying to understand how and why this city occupies a corner in the soul fails right away.

The first mentioning of Gdov and the date of its foundation are split in time for more than a century. Chroniclers recorded the town in the tables in 1323. Roadside stele shows 1431. The main event that local places are related to happened even earlier. On April 5, 1242 Alexander Nevsky gave Battle of the Ice on Lake Peipus. But Lake Peipus is Gdov's own flesh. Not surprisingly, that fishing shop at the city market seems its main attraction.

A magician crammed in a small room everything pertaining to catching and deception of fish: the smallest and largest hooks, high-tech foreign fishing lines, boots, boats, motors of any power, rods, sinkers, nets, "TVs", scoop-nets, paddles, jigs, wobblers, weighted lines and bait. The results of total fisherization – a bundle of dried pike and perch – can be found right there, on the market.

Once Gdov defended Pskov from the north (the Oblast capital is 125 km away). Since that time the city has only few stone ruins remained and nothing else.

3800 dwellers, calling themselves Gdovichi or Gdovtsy, live with what God has sent. There is a train station, but the year before last, the trains were cancelled with the grace of Russian Railways. Now they run only to Slantsy, which is 50 kilometers away.

Gdov's industry has a fish factory, of course, one milk factory and a bakery. Leisure facilities are represented by the Buffet Number 2 and a cafe with aluminum forks. Where is Buffet Number 1 even the old-timers cannot think of. Some life makes itself felt only on Karl Marx Street, intersecting with Lenin Street and at shopping arcades constructed in lean-to style. The revolutionaries had never been to Gdov. Actually, they were not required to do this. It's been long time that Marx and Lenin are indifferent to what structures were named after them. City dwellers are indifferent even more.

Then, what on earth is the magic about this place? Nothing whithin it. The magic is in outskirts. Here, they are that kind, that for example, a military fighter crashed in 2002, was searched by 100 people, 12 pieces of equipment and 30 students for almost a week. The plane was found, but the students got lost. Then they were found also. Oligarchic dynasties, whose names are now at the hearing, made a fortune just on the Pskov wood, having bought abandoned sawmills in wild years. Lake Peipus shore is a border zone, where theoretically a permit is required. Over 40 kilometer of water surface is Estonian territory, but either there is nobody or they are too lazy to check the ID's neither of drivers, nor surfers, of whom there are in abundance. And it gives visitors the joy of full immersion into nature, in the great beauty of Pskov land.