Primorsk was Koivisto in Finnish times, a fishing and timber port on a sheltered bay near the mouth of the Gulf of Finland, and until 1940 it belonged to Finland. Its most striking reminder of that era is a large red brick Lutheran church in the national romantic style, standing above the town with a heavy square tower. The church survived the wars and Soviet decades, served for years as a cinema and a museum, and has since been restored. It looks out of place in a Russian town of five thousand people, which is exactly why it is worth seeing.
Today Primorsk is known for something less romantic: it is the terminal of a big oil pipeline, and tankers load crude here for export. The terminal sits on the edge of town and dominates the shoreline to one side, but it does not spoil the whole place. The old harbour, the rocky shore, the pine forest that runs right down to the sea, and the islands scattered across the bay give the town a wild, northern feel, especially on grey days when the wind comes off the gulf and the water turns the colour of slate.
The riding along this section of the coast is among the best around St Petersburg. The road from Zelenogorsk winds through pine and birch forest, with bends that follow the shoreline and occasional views of the water, rocks and small islands. Traffic is light on weekdays, and the surface is generally decent, though there are rough patches and the edges can be crumbly. Beyond Primorsk the road continues north toward Vyborg, through more forest and past lakes, with a few sharp bends where the terrain gets rocky.
In town there is fuel, a couple of shops and simple cafes, enough for a short break. Sovetsky, about twenty kilometres further north, is another small settlement, and Vyborg has every service. The shore around Primorsk is good for a walk among granite rocks smoothed by the ice sheet, and on summer evenings the light lingers until close to midnight. Mosquitoes in the forest can be ferocious in June and July, so keep moving when you are not by the water.