Other sights in Northern European Russia
-
Geological Museum
The town’s neat, widely spaced concrete-block architecture is hardly an attraction, but there’s a new, central Geological Museum
reviewed
-
A
Oceanarium
The mini, bubble-domed Oceanarium hosts splashy seal shows.
reviewed
-
B
Museum of Diplomatic Corps
This unusual two-room museum chronicles a little-known blip in WWI history. In February 1918, with the Germans approaching Petrograd, Allied ambassadors were ordered to evacuate. US ambassador David Francis suggested simply relocating. Studying a map, he chose Vologda. Other embassies followed his lead, the French, Italian and Serbian ministries sharing a luxury rail carriage parked in Vologda station. That proved handy since in July all the embassies decamped again to Arkhangelsk. The eclectic and impressively researched exhibit has some notes in English and is housed in the former US embassy, a tired if once-grand timber house with a four-pillar wooden portico.
reviewed
-
C
Gostiny Dvor
In the 17th and 18th centuries, Arkhan-gelsk’s raison d’être was the Gostiny Dvor, a grand, turreted brick trading centre built between 1668 and 1684. Luxurious European textiles, satin and velvet arrived here while flax, hemp, wax and timber for ships’ masts were exported. The once-huge complex is now only a shadow of its former self but some partly restored sections host exhibition rooms that usually have a couple of worthwhile historical and/or art displays.
reviewed
-
D
Art Gallery
Arkhangelsk’s most compelling art gallery jams together a remarkable selection of 18th- to early-20th-century Russian paintings ranging stylistically from Stanislav Khlebovsky’s very operatic Death of Prince Oranskogo (1861) to Pili Petrovichev’s impres-sionist Beryozy (Birches, 1917). Upstairs are impressive icons, bone carvings and decorative art displays. However, the building containing all these delights is an architectural crime against humanity.
reviewed
-
Geological Museum
The bright new Geological Museum is open to drop-in guests. Labelled mineral fragments are sold here as souvenirs. By appointment, more specialist visitors can arrange a guided visit to a second Mineralogy Collection on the top floor of the next-door Kola Scientific Centre. Friendly academics speak English but if you don’t have the geological background to pose relevant questions you’re likely to feel embarrassingly out of your depth.
reviewed
-
Sami History & Culture Museum
Under Stalin, the once-nomadic Sami (Lapp) people were brutally suppressed and forcibly collectivised. Of Russia’s roughly 1600 Sami, some 900 now live in the tiny administrative village of Lovozero (Luyavvr) where a little Sami History & Culture Museum displays 2000-year-old petroglyphs and sells various Sami crafts including reindeer-fur slippers and carved bone-work. Staff can arrange English-speaking translator-guides.
reviewed
-
E
Kraevedchesky Museum
The extensive Kraevedchesky Museum is in the 17th century Gavriilovsky Korpus. Beyond all the stuffed mammals (go on, make that bear growl) is a rich prehistory section including a 3500-year-old lady skeleton clasping at her modesty. Look for the Hieronymus Bosch–like 1721 painting Strashny Sud, in which demons, angels and endless salmon-pink humanoids fight out the final tribulations of eternity.
reviewed
-
F
Museum
One of several fine old wooden buildings at the northern end of Leningradskaya houses this lovable little museum evoking the life of a 19th century, 17-child middle-class family. Amid portraits and old dolls are musical boxes and an old gramophone that still plays. A selection of beautiful photos showcase other examples of Vologda’s historic wooden architecture.
reviewed
-
Statue of Yury Andropov
Unveiled to protests and arrests in 2005, a very youthful statue of Yury Andropov commemorates the USSR’s 1982–84 supremo who had been chief of Petrozavodsk’s Komsomol (Communist Party youth wing) some 50 years earlier. Andropov is best remembered as a long-term KGB director. Was the statue a sign of President Putin rehabilitating his former boss?
reviewed
Advertisement
-
St Procopio’s Cathedral
St Procopio’s Cathedral has a stone purported to grant your wish if you sit on it. Clear your mind, and look at the church complex across the wide, unbridged river. At sunset peaceable gaggles of artists, fishermen, lovers and wobbly old pensioners dot the wide sweep of grassy river-front serenaded by cooing pigeons.
reviewed
-
G
Museum
The historical section in this museum has strikingly presented sections on the Soviet-era timber industry, Gulag camps and notably WWII, when the city was pounded by 2100 German bombing runs and survived largely thanks to supply convoys from Scotland. Downstairs the Nature Section is a lumpy taxidermy collection.
reviewed
-
H
St Sofia’s Cathedral
Powerful five-domed St Sofia’s Cathedral has a soaring interior fully covered with beautiful 1680s frescoes which, to some untutored eyes, look more attractive than the more famous Unesco-listed ones at Ferapontovo. The astonishingly tall iconostasis is filled with darkly brooding saintly portraiture.
reviewed
-
‘Residence’
A good central starting point for exploring the town’s historic centre is Ded Moroz’s part-time ‘residence’ where the Russian Santa shows up at festival times. There’s a ‘throne room’ and a lacklustre exhibition room.
reviewed
-
I
Pre-Cambrian Geology Museum
Keen geologists love the Geological Institute’s Pre-Cambrian Geology Museum. However, nonspecialist tourists should think twice before dropping in and disturbing the busy academics who hold the keys: they work way up on the Institute’s 5th floor.
reviewed
-
Assumption Cathedral
Wind along the shore for 900m to find Kem’s greatest attraction, the fine 1711 log-frame Assumption Cathedral. Although currently half-hidden in scaffolding, its quadruple wooden spires have a charm similar to better-known equivalents around Kargopol.
reviewed
-
Peter the Great House-Museum
First opened in 1885, Vologda’s oldest museum is a tiny late-17th-century stone house that supposedly hosted Tsar Peter I during his visits to Vologda. Exhibits include Peter’s death mask and red tunic, underlining his remarkable height.
reviewed
-
Regional Museum
The Regional Museum is located in the Kirovsk-25 mikro-rayon (bus No 1, 12 or 105), within an awesome mountain gap. Some experts believe that the neat removal of literally half a mountain here can only have been achieved through a nuclear detonation.
reviewed
-
J
Resurrection Cathedral
Just outside the Kremlin enclosure, the amply domed 1776 Resurrection Cathedral adds photogenic foreground to Kremlin views. It also houses an art gallery of regularly changing exhibits.
reviewed
-
Open-Air Museum
This open-air museum featuring historical wooden architecture is 12km up the Vytegra road (bus 107). It was under partial reconstruction at the time of research. Call ahead to check if it has reopened.
reviewed
Advertisement
-
K
Lair of Art Gallery
In the fine Marfin Mansion, the Lair of Art Gallery hosts occasional miniconcerts, but is most interesting for its furnished interior and large model of how Arkhangelsk looked a century ago.
reviewed
-
L
Regional Studies Museum
The Regional Studies Museum features geology, natural history and oceanography on the 2nd floor, and Kola Peninsula history on the 3rd floor. There’s a reasonable souvenir shop too.
reviewed
-
Salma Art Salon
Salma Art Salon is a private cooperative outlet for over 200 Kola Peninsula artists. Prices are low, and the management can arrange the paperwork to expedite customs procedures.
reviewed
-
M
Stretenskaya Church
Several potentially fabulous old churches lie in various stages of neglect, notably the run-down 1731 Stretenskaya Church with kremlin views through the cow parsley.
reviewed
-
N
Lighthouse Monument
The Lighthouse Monument commemorates lost sailors including the 118 crew of the Kursk nuclear submarine that sank in the Barents Sea in 2000.
reviewed