Kostomuksha is a young town by Russian standards, built from scratch in the 1970s and 1980s to serve a huge iron ore mine and processing plant in the forest near the Finnish border. Soviet planners and Finnish engineers worked together on the project, and the result is a clean, orderly town of about thirty thousand people, with wide streets, tidy apartment blocks and a lake on its edge. It feels different from older Karelian towns, more like a Nordic company town dropped into the taiga, and it has a calm, practical air.
The surrounding country is the real attraction. This is the land of the Kalevala, the Finnish national epic, which the physician Elias Lönnrot compiled in the 1830s and 1840s from songs he collected from singers in the villages of Karelia on both sides of the border. Many of the tales were gathered close to here, and the Kalevala National Park and the Kostomuksha Nature Reserve protect large tracts of pine forest, bog and lakes where bears, wolverines and wild reindeer still roam. The landscape is flat, quiet and full of water, and the forest smells of resin and moss.
For riders, the road to and from Kostomuksha runs through remote, lightly populated country, with long forested stretches broken by lakes. The surface is generally good on the main route but can deteriorate on side roads, and wildlife on the road, especially moose at dusk, is a real hazard. The border with Finland lies close by, and the zone around it is regulated, so permits and documents are required for areas near the frontier. The riding season is from June to September, with long days, though mosquitoes and biting flies are intense in July.
The town has all the services a rider needs, with fuel stations, supermarkets, cafes and hotels, and it serves as the last substantial stop before the wilderness. Stock up on fuel, food and water here, since the settlements farther on are small and far apart. Karelian pies and smoked fish are good choices for a simple meal.
If you have time, a visit to the Kalevala village and the lakes around it, with their quiet shores and dark water, gives a feeling for the old stories.