Arkhangelsk Region

Arkhangelsk is the unofficial capital of the ‘Russian North’, the land of ancient wooden churches and ascetic White Sea landscapes. The region includes several large archipelagos. The most famous are, of course, the Solovetsky Islands, infamous for the fact that, in Soviet times, the Solovetsky Monastery was “converted” into one of the first sections of the Gulag.

Arkhangelsk Region also includes the Novaya Zemlya archipelago in the Arctic and Franz Josef Land, where Rudolf Island, the northernmost point of Russia, is located.

There you can find taiga, tundra and many nature reserves, including the Russian Arctic National Park, as well as forests and arctic deserts in which rare wild animals live.