Lake Peipus (Estonian: Peipsi-Pihkva järv) is an inland body of water located between Estonia and Russia. At 3,555 km², it is approximately seven times the size of Lake Constance and is the fifth largest lake in Europe. The lake stretches 143 km north-south and is up to 50 km wide. Together with the Narva River, its outlet to the Baltic Sea, it forms almost the entire eastern border between Estonia and the Russian Federation.
Despite increasing environmental pollution, Lake Peipus is rich in fish. The average annual catch is about 10,000 tons. The Battle of Lake Peipus was of great historical significance: On April 5, 1242, a Russian army under the Novgorod Prince Alexander Nevsky defeated the German and Danish crusaders of the Teutonic Order and the Order of the Lieutenants of the Sword, as well as their allies, on the ice of the frozen lake. Estonian allies.
A regionally significant minority of Old Believers lives on the western shore of the lake. Their ancestors came to what was then Swedish Estonia as religious refugees from the Russian Empire at the end of the 17th century.[2] To this day, the Russian-speaking Old Believers, who maintain special religious and cultural customs, make up the majority of the population in some places along the lake, for example, in the so-called "onion villages" of Varnja, Kasepää, and Kolkja (Wikipedia).