Kostroma is a historic city and the administrative center of Kostroma Oblast, Russia. A part of the Golden Ring of Russian cities, it is located at the confluence of the rivers Volga and Kostroma. In the 2021 census, the population is 267,481.

Ivan Susanin was a Russian national hero and martyr of the early-17th-century Time of Troubles. According to the popular legend, Polish troops seeking to kill Tsar Mikhail hired Susanin as a guide. Susanin persuaded them to take a secret path through the Russian forests, and neither they nor Susanin were ever heard from again.