Sadko: From Novgorod to the Sea Tsar

In Rimsky-Korsakov's opera the story opens in a merchants' guild hall, where the rich men of Novgorod congratulate themselves on their prosperity. Sadko sings that the city would be richer still if a river joined Lake Ilmen to the ocean, and the merchants laugh at him. Novgorod's market district, the Trade Side, is roughly where Yaroslav's Court stood, the old princely compound in front of which the city's veche, its popular assembly, often met.

Location precision: The opera sets the scene in an unnamed guild mansion; the pin marks Yaroslav's Court on the Trade Side.

Sadko plays his gusli on the lake shore, and the Sea Tsar enjoys the music. In the opera a swan turns into Volkhova, the Sea Princess, who tells him how to catch golden fish. In the bylina the Tsar helps him win a wager with the local merchants about a gold-finned fish, and they must pay up, making Sadko rich. The lake itself is vast, about 982 square kilometres on average.

Location precision: The story names only the lake and its shore; the pin marks the lake's centre.

With his new wealth Sadko sails to trade overseas; in the opera his fleet sets out for Venice. Any such voyage from Novgorod ran down the Volkhov, and the old town of Ladoga guarded the route: it was a major trading port that controlled access to the river. The story never names Ladoga, but this is the gate his ships would have passed.

Location precision: The tale does not name a port; the pin marks the fortress at Staraya Ladoga, which controlled the river route.

After the sea adventure ends, Sadko wakes by the lakeside. In the opera Volkhova says farewell and turns into the river that now links Lake Ilmen with the sea, and his fleet appears on the new water. In the real landscape the Volkhov leaves the lake six kilometres above Novgorod, and its source is marked by the Peryn Chapel from the 1220s, part of a skete built on the site of an alleged shrine to the god Perun.

Location precision: The opera has only a meadow on the Ilmen shore; the pin marks the Peryn Skete near the river's source.

Historians have suggested Sadko was based on Sotko Sytinich, named in the Novgorod First Chronicle as patron of the Church of Boris and Gleb in the Detinets, built in 1167. That church has not survived. The Detinets, Novgorod's fortress, is today a great oval 545 metres long and 240 metres wide, with nine surviving towers.

Location precision: The exact site of Sotko's church is unknown; the pin marks the Novgorod Kremlin (Detinets).