- District of Sheksna
- District of Cherepovets
- District of Chagoda
- District of Kharovsk
- District of Ustyuzhna
- District of Ust'-Kubinskoye
- District of Tot'ma
- District of Tarnoga
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- Cherepovets
- District of Vytegra
- District of Vologda
- District of Vozhega
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Science and engineering

Nikolai Vereshchagin
biologist, founder of Russian butter- and cheese-making
Industrially, Russia's dairy production dates back to 1795. In the last decades of the 19th century it became big business throughout the country.
Nikolai Vereshchagin, the then most influential Russian dairy expert, is considered to be the founder of modern Russian dairy farming.
Nikolai was born in 1839 in the village of Petrovka (district of Cherepovets, Vologda oblast). His father was a Russian landowner of noble birth, and from his mother he inherited Tatar blood. His parents possessed several small estates in the Novgorod and Vologda gubernias. An officer by training, Nikolai Vereshchagin was the leading dairy expert in Russia until his death in 1907.
When he was a small boy he entered the cadet corps, and some years later - the naval school. But Nikolai left the service immediately to begin the study of natural sciences in the University of St.Petersburg. Like most Russian intellectuals of his generation, Vereshchagin was struck by the misery of peasants' life and advocated modernization of agriculture and improvement of Russian peasants' living conditions.
Nikolai Vereshchagin endeavored to get familiar with cheese-making. But all was in vain, as the leading experts in cheese-making, mostly foreigners, did not share their expertise. Thus he went on a journey to Switzerland to study dairy farming and cheese-making. In August 1865 the leading dairy expert established the first Russian cheese dairy in the Tver district. He was in favour of an expansion of cooperative dairy production and of the establishment of cooperative export unions. Being a man of remarkable enterprise, Vereshchagin set up not only creameries throughout Russia, but also storehouses for butter and cheese in St.Petersburg and Moscow. He was the first one in Russia who started to export cheese abroad.
In 1871 with an active backing of the Russian Government, Nikolai Vereshchagin opened a dairy school in the Tver district. Under his patronage many prominent specialists left this school, thus giving rise to the establishment of numerous dairies all over Russia. In 1886-1888 Nikolai Vereshchagin arranged several mobile creameries led by the trained staff.
After a string of experiments Nikolai Vereshchagin came to the conclusion that numerous factors make an impact on the taste and odour of butter, namely herbs growing on the meadows, breed of cows, their ration, thickness and acidity of milk, and above all cleanness and freshness of milk. He had a talent for organizing that enriched the Russian language with the notion of "Vologda Butter."
Nikolai Vereshchagin was an author of numereous works dedicated to dairy farming: On Cheese-making in Switzerland (1866), On Development of Dairy Cooperatives in Russia (1869), Market for Butter in Foreign Countries (1869), Cooperative Dairy Farming in New World (1870), On Thickness of Milk Produced by Foreign and Russian Herd (1887) and others.