St Petersburg to Vyborg Coast

Baltic shoreline, granite forest and a fortified finish at Vyborg.

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Why this ride

Baltic shoreline, granite forest and a fortified finish at Vyborg. The road: A181 and Gulf of Finland roads. Distance and riding time are estimates from the checkpoints until the road is measured on this page.

Roadbook

1. Repino start

   Repino takes its name from Ilya Repin, the painter of the Volga Boatmen and of some of the most famous portraits in Russian art, who lived here for the last three decades of his life in a wooden house he called Penaty. At the time the village was called Kuokkala and belonged to Finland, and after the revolution Repin found himself on the far side of a border from the country whose history he had painted. The house, with its glass studio and odd gables, is now a museum, and the garden paths through the pines lead to his grave.

   The village lies on the northern shore of the Gulf of Finland, part of the Kurortny district of St Petersburg, a long strip of resort settlements, pine forest and sandy beaches that has been a summer escape for city dwellers for well over a century. Dachas and sanatoriums hide among the trees, and on a warm day the beach fills with families, sunbathers and people walking dogs along the water's edge. The sea here is shallow and brackish, and on still evenings the sunsets across the gulf toward Kronstadt can be spectacular.

   As the start of a ride up the coast to Vyborg, Repino is a gentle beginning. The coastal road runs northwest through pine woods and past villages and small resorts, never far from the shore, with glimpses of sand and water through the trees. The surface is generally good near the city, though traffic on summer weekends is heavy and the speed limits change constantly through settlements. Early morning is the time to set off, with the light coming through the pines and the road nearly empty.

   Fuel and supplies are easy to find: Repino has shops and cafes along the main road, and Sestroretsk and Zelenogorsk, both close by, offer everything. There are restaurants of every kind along this stretch, from beach cafes to formal dining rooms. If you have an hour, the Penaty museum is worth a look before setting off, both for Repin and for a glimpse of how the Finnish era shaped this coast, which changed hands twice in the twentieth century and still carries Finnish names under its Russian ones.

2. Zelenogorsk stop

   Zelenogorsk, the Green Hill, was Terijoki until 1948, and for the first half of the twentieth century it was one of the busiest Finnish resort towns on this coast, the first sizeable stop across the border from St Petersburg. Wealthy families from the imperial capital built summer villas here, and the town had a famous casino, a promenade and a lively summer season. The Finnish past is still visible in the Lutheran church, a pale stone building with a tall spire, restored after decades of neglect, and in the layout of the older streets with their wooden houses set among pines.

   Today it has about fifteen thousand people and a split personality: a quiet seaside town in winter, a crowded escape from the city in summer. The beach, long and sandy, runs along the shore of the Gulf of Finland, and on clear days you can see the low line of the Kronstadt forts and the dam across the bay. A short ride east lies Komarovo, a village of dachas where the poet Anna Akhmatova spent her last summers and where she is buried in a small cemetery among the pines.

   For riders, Zelenogorsk is the last real town on the coastal stretch before the road heads into quieter country toward Primorsk and Vyborg. The coastal road beyond it narrows and runs through forest, with bends that follow the shoreline, occasional glimpses of the sea, and long straights through the pines. The surface is mostly decent but can be patchy, and the road is popular with weekend riders from St Petersburg, so do not be surprised to see groups of bikes heading north on a sunny Saturday.

   The practical side is easy. Fuel stations, supermarkets, cafes and restaurants line the main road through town, and the seafront has places to sit with a coffee and watch the water. If you want a swim, the beach is fine in summer, though the water is cool and shallow for a long way out. Fill the tank here before heading on, as the next stretch along the coast is thinly populated, and enjoy the smell of pines and salt that seems to define this whole shore.

3. Primorsk stop

   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.

4. Vyborg finish

   Vyborg has been Swedish, Russian, Finnish and Russian again, and you can read every one of those layers in its stones. The Swedes founded a castle here in 1293 on a small island at the head of a long bay, as an outpost against Novgorod, and its tall grey tower of Saint Olaf still stands over the water, the oldest landmark in town. Peter the Great took the city in 1710, Finland made it its second city in the early twentieth century, and the Soviet Union took it in the wars of 1940 and 1944, when most of the Finnish population left.

   The old town is a maze of narrow streets, some still cobbled, with medieval towers, Swedish-era merchant houses, Russian imperial buildings and fine Finnish art nouveau, much of it in a state somewhere between restored and crumbling. The Round Tower on the market square is a sixteenth century artillery tower, and the Clock Tower is a short walk away. On the edge of town the Alvar Aalto library, a landmark of modernist architecture built in the 1930s, has been carefully restored and is worth seeing. Just to the north lies Monrepos, a romantic landscape park of granite rocks, pine woods and pavilions above the bay.

   As the finish of the coastal ride from St Petersburg, Vyborg is a satisfying end. The final approach through forest and past lakes is pleasant, and the first view of the castle tower across the water tells you that you have arrived. In town, take care on the cobbles, especially in the wet, and watch for tram lines and pedestrians who wander freely in the old streets. Parking is easy enough near the castle or the market square.

   Vyborg has around eighty thousand people and every service: fuel, workshops, hotels, restaurants and cafes. The local speciality worth trying is the Vyborg pretzel, a sweet, cardamom-scented ring that has been baked here since Swedish times. Allow a few hours to explore the old town and the castle, and if you can, stay the night. The evening light over the bay, with the tower reflected in the still water, is the perfect close to a day on the coast.

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