Northwestern Russia Region Guide

Northwestern Russia holds the country’s most European city, its oldest churches and its emptiest forests.

Saint Petersburg was built from nothing on a marsh from 1703 as a deliberate act of will, and remains one of the great planned cities — canals, granite embankments, the Hermitage, and white nights in June when it barely gets dark.

Veliky Novgorod and Pskov preserve Russia’s oldest architecture, from before the Mongol invasions, and a tradition of medieval city republics that is not the usual Russian story.

Kizhi, on an island in Lake Onega, carries a wooden church of twenty-two domes built without nails.

Beyond them are Karelian lakes and forest, the White Sea, the Solovetsky monastery-prison, and the Arctic north.

Note: many governments currently advise against travel to Russia, and practical conditions for foreign visitors have changed considerably. Check current advice before planning anything.

Saint Petersburg

The Hermitage, which needs at least a full day; the Russian Museum for Russian art specifically; the Church of the Saviour on Spilled Blood; a boat along the canals; and the Mariinsky for ballet or opera. Out of town, Peterhof and its gravity-fed fountains, and Tsarskoye Selo’s amber room.

Veliky Novgorod

The kremlin on the Volkhov, the eleventh-century Saint Sophia cathedral — the oldest surviving building in Russia — and the twelfth-century churches with fresco fragments.

Kizhi

An island in Lake Onega reached by hydrofoil from Petrozavodsk, with the twenty-two-domed Church of the Transfiguration and a collection of relocated wooden buildings.

Karelia

Lakes, forest, the Ruskeala marble canyon, and Valaam monastery on Ladoga.

The far north

The Solovetsky Islands in the White Sea, Arkhangelsk’s wooden architecture, and the Kola peninsula for the aurora.

This is the most European-facing part of Russia and has been for a thousand years.

The window on Europe

Saint Petersburg was built to face outward and was the imperial capital for two centuries. Its residents cultivate a self-image of cultured, ironic, slightly shabby refinement and an unstated rivalry with Moscow, and the city has produced a disproportionate share of Russian literature, music and, more recently, rock.

The republics

Veliky Novgorod and Pskov were merchant city-states with elected officials and a citizens’ assembly, part of the Hanseatic trading world, until Moscow crushed them. The memory of that alternative Russian history is preserved locally with some pride.

Karelia and the north

Finno-Ugric peoples — Karelians, Veps, Sami — with their own languages and traditions, and an old culture of forest and lake living. The Finnish epic Kalevala was collected largely from Karelian singers.

The camps

The Solovetsky Islands, the White Sea canal and the Karelian forests hold the early history of the Gulag, and it is not distant history for Russian families.

Check current travel advice first. Many governments advise against all or all but essential travel to Russia, insurance is frequently void as a result, and consular assistance is severely limited. This is a practical matter, not a political one, and it should be settled before anything else.

The Solovetsky Islands are both a monastery and the site of the first Soviet labour camp. They are a place of mourning for many Russian families, and should be visited as such rather than as a curiosity.

Wooden architecture at Kizhi, Kem and across Karelia is extremely vulnerable to fire and to moisture; stay on the walkways, and do not smoke anywhere near it.

Indigenous peoples: Karelians, Veps, Sami and Nenets live in the region, and community-run cultural tourism exists where it is viable.

In the forest and on the lakes, fire risk is real in summer and litter does not decompose quickly in this climate.

June and early July are the season, above all for the white nights in Saint Petersburg, when the sun barely sets and the city stays out all night. It is also the busiest and most expensive period.

Late May to early September covers the warm months, with lakes swimmable in July and August and the Karelian forest at its best.

September brings autumn colour across Karelia and thinner crowds, with the weather still workable.

November to March is cold, dark and long, with very short days — but snow-covered Saint Petersburg is genuinely beautiful, the museums are quiet, and the north offers the aurora and reliable winter conditions.

April and October are the difficult months: thaw, mud, grey skies and little to recommend them.

What a day costs, by how you travel

Relative cost across the region

Payment is the practical problem. Foreign-issued cards do not work in Russia, and Russian cards are effectively unobtainable for short-term visitors, so travel currently means carrying enough cash for the whole trip. Factor that in before anything else.