A trip to Karelia and Ruskeala park by car - my review of the trip

A trip to Karelia by car was my first serious driving experience - before I traveled with friends and got behind the wheel in the most extreme cases (almost never).

Therefore, I will calm down in advance those who also have a short driving experience. The route in Karelia is quite simple, the roads are good.

I'll tell you what is worth seeing in Karelia, where it is better to stay with an overnight stay. I will mention the prices for the main attractions and at the end I will leave a review and advice for an independent trip. Everything within 2-3 days, if you are going for a week, you will have to look for additional places :)

Where can I rent a car in St. Petersburg?

It is necessary to take it online and in advance. Because I had a situation when we were looking for a free car on the spot until the evening! And this is not yet the peak season. And already in 2021 - the year of great tourism in Russia - everything related to living and moving around is sorted out instantly.

Moreover, renting a car online is as easy and reliable as flights to St. Petersburg. I prepared thoroughly for the trip and concluded that cars are often chosen for renting in Russia on the sites:

• EconomyBookings
• RentalCars

I chose the first one, everything went well. I booked a Hyundai Сreta, and I got it.
A pure car rental for two days came out at 5,000 rubles - this is at a discount due to late autumn, in summer it will be more expensive. I also paid an additional 500 rubles for a car wash, I didn't want to look for something in the city, but I had to take it clean. And he asked for Casco insurance - after all, he was driving for the first time. It cost 500 rubles a day. Well, there was a deposit of 5,000 rubles, which was returned after the car was returned.

In general, it turned out 6,500 rubles in 2 days, I will talk about gasoline later. By the way, initially I reserved the car for 3 days, but they met me halfway and allowed me to finish the lease earlier, the money was returned.

An important point. If you take a car in St. Petersburg, the rental office must be warned about leaving the Leningrad Region. This is spelled out in the rental rules, but I, of course, did not notice :)
Therefore, I was very surprised by the ten missed calls after leaving the "dead" zone somewhere in the vastness of Karelia. It turns out they could even turn off the engine. By phone, we reissued the lease, throwing another 5000 rubles of the deposit onto the card - that is, you can leave, but with a notification and a larger deposit.

Now let's get down to business, in more detail about rest in Karelia: in summer, winter, autumn - it is beautiful at any time.

How long does it take to get to Karelia by car?

View in Ruskeala Park (flooded canyon)

The route to Ruskeala Park (the most popular tourist place) is short-lived - from St. Petersburg you can get there in 4-5 hours. If you decide to go to Petrozavodsk, then it takes about 6 hours to race to it.

For example, we left the city center at 6:00, on the way we picked up interesting places in Karelia with stops and at about 13:00 we got to the park.

From St. Petersburg there are two routes through Karelia, and both go around Lake Ladoga:

• Our option is via Sortavala via A-121. This road is closer to the border with Finland, it is faster, and along the way there are some unusual places like an abandoned Lutheran church.
• The second option is along the E105 road from the northern side of Lake Ladoga. I don't know the details, but definitely longer.

The distance to Karelia from Moscow, of course, is more - about 1000 km and 12-13 hours in the car. If I were leaving the capital, I would have stopped overnight in St. Petersburg, and early in the morning I would have moved to Karelia.

How long does it take to get to Karelia by car?

What are the roads in Karelia?

Two main types of roads found in Karelia

The main roads in Karelia are excellent. I don't know how long ago, but on our trip in 2020, they were already smooth and incredibly beautiful (this is already a merit of nature in Karelia).
The approach to some sights is often unpaved, without asphalt, but it is quite possible to drive a car. In late autumn, there was not even a hint of areas where one could get stuck.

Almost all the way you will be surrounded by beautiful places of the republic. Evaluate the quality of the roads in the video that I filmed while traveling in Karelia - I show both the main roads and access roads there.

Often the road is covered with dense fog, like from a horror movie (I caught this moment in the video). The fact is that one way or another the path winds along the huge Lake Ladoga - and this is the culprit of near-zero visibility. But the fog quickly dissipates, although it seemed that it would never leave it.

By gas stations everything is OK as well. There are many of them, but at the entrance to Sortavala and Ruskeala park it becomes smaller. The cost of gasoline is the same as in large cities. For the round trip, I refueled the Hyundai Creta twice, for a total of 3,000 rubles. But there are problems with food on the way, so I advise you to shop in St. Petersburg. So it is cheaper and faster in time. We gathered food in VkusVilla in the evening, and did not know hunger along the way.

Ehh, if not for the closed borders ... It would be possible on the way back, as in the good old days, to call in Finland in Lappeenranta or even in Helsinki.

Okay, the next question: where is it worth visiting when traveling to Karelia by car?

Route in Karelia by car - where have we been?

Lake in Ladoga skerries (walk about 15 minutes)

Driving through Karelia, you will come across very, VERY many names that are strange to the ear and the eye. Those with a slight Finnish touch - for example, Kitenjoki or Haapalampi. This is because earlier part of the land belonged to Finland. I am not strong in history, but it was about before the Second World War.

What to see in Karelia by car in 1-2 days?

Day 1: Ladoga skerries (Koyonsaari) - Kirkha in Lumivaara - Ruskeala Park - Sortavala city (where you can stay).

• Ladoga skerries are hundreds of small and not very islets on Lake Ladoga. More precisely, at its shores, as if Ladoga splits the land into pieces and makes its way into the depths.

There are many skerries, and ideally it would be necessary to rent a boat and move from island to island ... But we had only an hour or two left and a great desire to find out what skerries are. If we had the time, I would take this boat tour - too good reviews about it:

But we chose one island - Koyonsaari, as the most accessible "teapot" for the independent tourist. It takes about 20 minutes to get to it from the main road along an adequate off-road. You drive up to the barrier, leave the car - and then on foot, you can only move along Koyonsaari on your own two feet or on a bicycle. There is no infrastructure, and the nearest recreation center - Vyatikkya - is located before the entrance to the island.

Entrance fees to Ruskeala Park

Koyonsaari is a Nordic northern nature. Mossy trunks of tall trees, thickets of ferns, bushes creeping on the ground, birches, conifers. And in the fall, like mushrooms from a basket, they are scattered on the roadside (perhaps these are toadstools, but they are also a joy to a city person). And berries, berries on the bushes - the sea! Blueberries, lingonberries, something else unrecognizable. In a word, everything is confused here.

After 800 meters from the entrance, the dirt road bifurcates: you can go to the left inland for three kilometers, find an observation deck and admire all this natural miracle from above. Or you can cheat and take it to the right, and after 200 meters go to the shore, to a wide sandy beach. In summer they swim, sunbathe, relax, and pitch tents here. In late autumn - not a soul, only you, hungry ducks and skerries on the horizon.

• The abandoned church in Lumivaara is a Lutheran church in a village called Lumivaara. No, we are not in Finland, yet in Karelia :)

Abandonment is also mesmerizing - with your skin you feel the burden of the past years - and the ascetic angular shape of the building itself. The church was built in 1935.But, as I understand it, it was abandoned immediately after the Second World War, and it is unclear whether it even fulfilled the role of a church.

You can go inside, it smells of wilting and dust. You can climb the bell tower, but the idea is not safe - the stairs look unreliable. An impressive bell hangs at the top. They probably call him, but by our arrival he had time to rust.

Finnish church in Lumivaar

There is also a Finnish cemetery near the church, where soldiers from Lumivaara, who died in the wars of 39-44, are buried. Karelia and Lumivaara were disputed territories between Finland and the USSR and passed from one country to another, along with the forced evacuation of residents.

• Ruskeala Park is the most popular destination in Karelia, entrance fee is 350 rubles per person.

But in general, 30 minutes will be enough for its inspection :) Is it advisable to go purely for the sake of it for 4 hours? No. But if you include the above-described places in the route - yes, they "stretch" the trip.

Ruskeala Park consists of several marble canyons and routes passing through them. Marble was mined here from 1766 to 1998. From an industrial scale and government orders - even St. Isaac's Cathedral in St. Petersburg was decorated with a stone! - Ruskeala quarries gradually came to desolation.

But the formed canyons turned out to be so beautiful, with black and white sections, flooded with water and overgrown with fir trees, that it was impossible not to turn this place into a “visiting card” of Karelia.

The three main points of Ruskeala are mine # 2 at the entrance to the park, the flooded Big marble quarry (tip: the best angle for a photo right after leaving the mine) and the “dry” Italian quarry. You can walk around and take pictures of everything in 30-40 minutes. Yes, it is very picturesque here, but ... I would say that this does not compensate for the overcome road.

All other activities are for money:

- Zipline - 1200 rubles
- Excursion through underground tunnels - 1500 rubles

Total: all three sights can be seen in 1 day. We left St. Petersburg at 6:30 am. By 10 we were at Koyonsaari Island, and we got to the church in time for lunch. We ended up in Ruskeale at 13:00, spent an hour here and drove back to St. Petersburg, it took 4.5 hours to get there without stopping.

In general, we booked a hotel in Karelia in Sortavala, because we thought that the park would carry away until the evening. But we decided not to waste the next day in St. Petersburg. The return trip, of course, was difficult due to fatigue, so spending the night near the park is a sensible idea. Moreover, there are hotels and recreation centers both in Ruskeala (more expensive) and in the city of Sortavala (cheaper).

Day 2: Abandoned Läskelä factory - Mount Hiidenvuori - Kitelye pomegranate deposit - Koirinoya waterfall.

These are places not far from Sortavala, you can see them before lunch the next day, and then move to St. Petersburg.

And this is how the city of Sortavala looks like - an ordinary city with the exception of an unusual name :)

The sights of Karelia are not limited to those that I have listed. This is also the Nikolskaya Church, and Kinerma (according to some rating, the most beautiful village), and the island of Valaam. But, in my opinion, it is worth turning there if you are traveling in Karelia more than just for the weekend. And this text is about what to see in 1-2-3 days. But I had to throw ideas for a week trip :)

My review about Karelia and Ruskeala park - how much did the trip from St. Petersburg cost?

Walking through the woods in Ladoga skerries / We climbed the church in Lumivaar

Karelian nature is beautiful - you cannot find such a thing in central Russia. You may not be impressed only if you have been to Norway, Finland or Sweden before, after all, this is one natural area. My review of the trip to Karelia by car is extremely positive. There is little that can be compared to a mini-journey under its own power and full mobility when making decisions - to turn here or there? maybe to the lake?

But I understand that it is not always possible to drive, and what should those without a license do? In this case, you can take an excursion around Karelia - there is already a well-thought-out program, interesting stories from a knowledgeable person, and not requests to Google on the spot, and zero fatigue from constant concentration on the road!

• There are excursions both on site, from Sortavala or Petrozavodsk, and from St. Petersburg - see the entire assortment with different routes at Tripster

How much did the trip cost?
We consider: renting a car 6500 rubles for 2 days, gasoline 3000 rubles, buying food and coffee on the road 1000 rubles, entrance to the park 700 rubles - a total of 11 200 rubles, if you do everything in one day (yes, you can deduct the cost of an "extra" day of rent auto).

Tips.

- Let me remind you once again: warn the rental office where you rent a car that you are going to go to Karelia. Negotiate in advance so that you won't be able to relax in Karelia as a savage in the literal sense of the word :)

- The prices for gasoline in Karelia are the same as elsewhere, but have time to refuel, if necessary, to Ruskeala and Sortavala.

- If you see the Yastrebinoye Lake point on the map and decide, like us, to go there before the skerries - no need :) We did not find a way and simply lost time, and in general this is a place for guided hikes.

- A very cool idea - to go to Karelia by car with tents! Here are some good campgrounds and glamping sites:

• Forest Glade
• Hugge
• Camping at Rautalahti

The route in Karelia by car can be any - with an overnight stay, two, without at all (as in the end it happened with us). This is the beauty of traveling by car, not by train or buses. Initially, we calculated a route in Karelia for 2 days. But after Ruskeala Park we decided not to visit a couple of places, canceled our hotel reservations and returned to St. Petersburg. The reason is simple - we were tired and decided to devote more time to Peter.