Discover Northwestern Russia

North-western Russia runs from the Baltic up to the Arctic Ocean, and it is the part of the country with the longest exposure to Europe. Saint Petersburg is its centre: built from nothing on marshland from 1703 as Peter the Great’s window on the west, laid out on canals and islands, and still the imperial capital in appearance. The Hermitage occupies the Winter Palace and several buildings beside it, and the white nights in June keep the sky light almost around the clock.

South of the city lie the two oldest surviving centres of Russian culture. Novgorod was a merchant republic that the Mongols never reached, which is why its eleventh-century cathedral and its icons survive; it and Pskov are both UNESCO-listed. North and east, Karelia holds Europe’s two largest lakes, Ladoga and Onega, and on an island in the latter the Kizhi churches, built of interlocking logs without nails and topped with twenty-two wooden domes.

Further north again the Solovetsky Islands hold a fortified monastery that later became one of the first camps of the Gulag system, and Murmansk, well above the Arctic Circle, is an ice-free port with aurora through the winter. Many governments currently advise against travel to Russia, and sanctions have made flights, cards and insurance difficult; check current advice before planning anything.