Lake Onega Shore and Kizhi Gateway

A broad-water route along Onega with Karelian villages and northern forest.

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Why this ride

A broad-water route along Onega with Karelian villages and northern forest. The road: R21 and lakeside roads. Distance and riding time are estimates from the checkpoints until the road is measured on this page.

Roadbook

1. Petrozavodsk start

   Peter the Great founded Petrozavodsk in 1703 as a foundry, a place to cast cannon for the war against Sweden, and the name means exactly that, Peter's works. The city has since grown into the capital of the Republic of Karelia, with about a quarter of a million people, and sits on the western shore of Lake Onega, the second largest lake in Europe after Ladoga. The long embankment along the water is the city's best feature, lined with modern sculptures that were donated by twin towns around the world, and in good weather the whole town seems to walk along it.

   Onega is more like a sea than a lake. In summer the water is clear and cold, with rocky islets and long horizons, while in winter it freezes into a white plain and the shore shifts with ice. Hydrofoils run in season to Kizhi island, where the astonishing wooden churches stand, including the Transfiguration Church with its twenty-two domes, built without nails according to local tradition. The Kivach waterfall, one of the largest lowland waterfalls in Europe, lies north of the city and is a natural stop on the way to the interior.

   The ride along the lake toward Sortavala, on the shore of Lake Ladoga, is a classic north European one. Roads cross low glacial ridges, pine and spruce forests and many small lakes, with granite rock coming through the soil, and the surface is mostly good with some patched sections. The landscape resembles neighbouring Finland, and indeed Karelia was disputed between Finland and Russia and changed hands during the twentieth century, a history written in place names and in abandoned Finnish houses. Traffic is lighter than around Moscow or St Petersburg, though trucks and tour buses slow things in summer.

   Petrozavodsk has everything a rider needs, from fuel to repair shops, markets and restaurants serving local fish such as vendace and whitefish, along with the rye-crusted pies called kalitki that are a Karelian tradition. White nights in June make for very long riding days, while the warm months stretch from June to August. Mosquitoes and horseflies can be vicious in July, and autumn colours arrive in September, ahead of an early and hard winter.

2. Kondopoga stop

   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.

3. Medvezhyegorsk stop

   Medvezhyegorsk, the Bear's Head, sits on the northwestern shore of Lake Onega, at the head of Povenets Bay, in the Republic of Karelia. The town is a railway junction and a workaday centre of about sixteen thousand people, with timber yards, a lake harbour and a plain Soviet-era centre, but its place in history is heavier than its looks. It grew from a small village into a town in the early 1930s, when the White Sea-Baltic Canal was built nearby, and for a few years it served as the headquarters of the project.

   The canal, about two hundred and twenty kilometres long, connects Lake Onega with the White Sea, and it was dug in less than two years, largely by hand, by prisoners of the Gulag camp system. Tens of thousands died, from cold, hunger and exhaustion, and the canal, which was too shallow for many ships, became a symbol of the cost of Stalinist industrialisation. Near the town, in the forest at Sandarmokh, a memorial marks the place where thousands of people were shot in 1937 and 1938, and the quiet of the pines there is hard to forget. It is a place to visit with respect.

   The landscape around is Karelian: low hills, dark spruce and pine, bright birch in autumn, and thousands of lakes joined by short rivers. The rocks are among the oldest on Earth, scraped bare by glaciers, and in places you can see long scratches on the granite. In summer, mosquitoes and midges are a serious nuisance, and in June the white nights give light all through the evening. Autumn is clear and colourful, and winter brings deep snow.

   Roads here, like the M18 highway that links St Petersburg with Murmansk, are straight and fairly well kept, with long runs through forest, though frost heaves and patched surfaces appear in places. Trucks are common, and overtaking on blind rises is a regular habit among local drivers. Wildlife, especially elk, crosses the road at dusk, and a collision with one is dangerous. Tolerate the long distances and take breaks.

   Medvezhyegorsk has fuel stations and basic shops and cafes, and there are more in Pindushi, nearby. North of here, stations are well spaced but long gaps exist, so fill the tank whenever it is half empty. Povenets, to the south, is where the canal's staircase of locks begins.

4. Povenets finish

   Povenets lies at the northern end of Lake Onega, where a long bay narrows toward the start of the White Sea-Baltic Canal. It is a small settlement of about two and a half thousand people, set among low hills and forest, and it has an air of waiting. The name refers to a place where the road ends and the water begins, and the town has been a stopping point on routes north since the sixteenth century, when Russian settlers and merchants began using the river and lake system to reach the White Sea.

   The canal that begins here is one of the most remarkable and grim achievements of the Soviet era. Built between 1931 and 1933, it connects Lake Onega to the White Sea, a distance of about two hundred and twenty kilometers, using rivers, lakes and a series of locks. Most of the digging was done by prisoners of the Gulag, using hand tools, and tens of thousands died. The first lock in the staircase lies near Povenets, and it can be seen from the road. The canal opened a route for ships between the Baltic and the White Sea, though its shallow depth limited its use, and it later became part of the national story of industrial achievement, with its human cost long concealed.

   The riding around Povenets is quiet and attractive. The roads follow lakes and rivers, passing through spruce and birch forest, with open views over the water in many places. The surfaces are reasonable on the main roads, with some patches of gravel on the side tracks, and the bends are gentle. In summer, the light lasts well into the night. Mosquitoes and flies can be intense in the warm months, so a net or good repellent is advisable. Autumn is calm and golden.

   Services are limited, and fuel is best bought in Medvezhyegorsk or Petrozavodsk before you come. The village has a small shop and a few simple places to eat or sleep, and you can find fresh fish in season. Pindushi, a larger settlement about fourteen kilometers away, has more.

   Visit the lock if you can, and look at the water level and the stone. It is a place to reflect on what it cost to build.

Where this sits

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