The Kola Peninsula’s southern shore, on the White Sea, is a beautiful, pristine and completely unspoilt coastline with some fascinating architectural, archaeological and geological sites – still largely undiscovered by the outside world. The Varzuga River provides some of the very best salmon fishing in the world.
Category: Northern European Russia
Due to its prominence up until the 17th century, the Vologda region has a rich history and plenty of lovely old churches. Its capital, Vologda, is especially worth the trip from Moscow or Yaroslavl, but also in this region are the World Heritage-listed frescoes of Ferapontovo and the official home town of Father Frost, Russia’s equivalent of Father Christmas.
About 450km northeast of Moscow, Vologda is a pleasant provincial city with a high concentration of churches and monasteries, many lovely parks and wide avenues, and a low-rise city centre with a good number of 18th- and 19th-century wooden houses. The tranquillity in summer is disturbed only by Vologda’s large, but fortunately slow and clumsy, mosquitoes.
The fate of this provincial town 350km east of Vologda changed forever in 1998, when (for obscure reasons) Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov declared Veliky Ustyug to be the official home of Ded Moroz, gave the town a large sum of money, and said ‘Make it so’. Ded Moroz translates as Father Frost, and he’s the Russian equivalent of Santa Claus.
The Valaam Archipelago, consisting of Valaam Island and about 50 smaller islands, sits in northern Lake Ladoga. The main attractions here are the 14th-century Valaam Transfiguration Monastery(Valaamsky Spaso-Preobrazhensky monastyr; 38182, 38233; www.valaam.ru) and the beautiful tree-covered island on which it stands, with its many bays and headlands. The island can be reached by boat or hydrofoil, mid-May to mid-October.
The largest settlement on this coast, Umba is still a wonderfully tranquil place to hang out and explore on foot. The 103km paved road from Kandalaksha runs through forest, with glimpses of lakes and the island-strewn Kandalaksha Bay.
Perched in the icy waters of the southern White Sea, the Solovetsky Islands (often referred to as Solovki) have for centuries been the scene of amazing extremes of human heroism, endurance, suffering and cruelty. The islands were home to one of the most famous and powerful monasteries in the Russian Empire (today much revived), a tsarist-era penal colony, and one of the cruellest Soviet prison camps. They are also places of unique and haunting nat- ural beauty, with countless bays, headlands and lakes, extensive forests and hardly any human inhabitants. Try to give yourself at least two days, preferably more, to explore Solovki. You’re unlikely to regret it.
Petrozavodsk, 420km northeast of St Peters- burg, is one of the Russia’s loveliest cities, set on the shore of Lake Onega with countless green parks and pretty squares flanking its broad, tree-lined avenues. With two universities, the city has a large student population and its proximity to Finland lends a markedly European atmosphere. Petrozavodsk is a place to enjoy hanging out as well as a springboard for trips to Kizhi and Valaam and a starting point for journeys further north.
In St Petersburg or Moscow it’s oddly easy to be unaware of the great expanses of Russia that stretch north. Indeed, probably as many foreign travellers enter northern European Russia from neighbouring Finland and Norway as venture north from the ‘Russian heartland’. But the gradually growing number of travellers here are discovering a land of constant surprises, profound beauty and even a spot of urban sophistication.
Midway between Moscow and the North Pole, Murmansk is the largest city north of the Arctic Circle. It’s also the most easily-visited northerly city in Russia, perfect for experiencing the midnight sun and polar night.