Russia - Russia's North-West - From St. Petersburg To The Kola Peninsula (52/151)

Russia - Russia's North-West - From St. Petersburg To The Kola Peninsula (52/151)

This journey takes place in the European part of Russia. But it is nevertheless a journey into a distant world - from what is probably the most European of all Russian cities over a distance of more than a 1,000 kilometres to the region of Murmansk north of the Polar Circle, from the metropolis to taiga and tundra. The settlement of the Kola peninsula was a major tour de force. In Monchegorsk a large portion of the population still works in the nickel plant, which is responsible on the one hand for acid rain and a ghostly swathe of polluted nature, but on the other hand for increased affluence. Only a few kilometres away from the city one can discover a stretch of landscape where it seems as if the Ice Age has only recently ended. To the east, in the region of Vologda, the "old" rural Russia is still to be found in the sleepy villages with their wooden dachas and magnificent Russian-Orthodox churches.