Kondopoga sits at the head of a long bay on the northwest shore of Lake Onega, in the Republic of Karelia, and it is a town of about thirty-five thousand people that grew around a paper mill and a stone quarry. The mill has been the center of its economic life since the early twentieth century, and the sulfurous smell it sometimes gives the air is part of the memory of anyone who has driven through. The town's setting is better than its reputation, with the bay behind it and forested hills around.
Its great loss was a wooden church. The Church of the Dormition, built in 1774 in the classic style of the Russian North, with a tall tent roof and a cluster of small domes, stood on the waterfront and was one of the finest of its kind in Karelia. It burned down in 2018, and the fire, which was a blow to local people, has led to discussions about rebuilding it. Several other wooden churches and chapels in the region survive and are well worth seeking out. Another local legacy is the marble and the pink-grey granite quarried nearby, used in buildings in St. Petersburg.
For riders, Kondopoga is a gateway. The road north from here, toward Petrozavodsk and Medvezhyegorsk, runs through rolling country with lakes, forest and views of Onega's islands, and the way to the Kivach waterfall, on the Suna river, takes you through wild, boggy country with stands of pine. The surface is mostly good on the main highways and rougher on the side roads. Traffic is light, apart from trucks carrying timber. In summer the days are long, with the white nights in June, and autumn brings brilliant colors. Winter is long and cold, with deep snow.
Fuel and food are readily available in the town, and Kondopoga has stations on the main road and a handful of cafes that serve Karelian dishes, such as kalitki, small open pies filled with potato or millet, and fish from the lake. It makes a useful stop before heading into the thinly settled north.
Stop at the shore if the light is good. The bay is calm in the early evening, and the old wooden houses along the water give a sense of what the town once looked like.