New Year's novel: Petersburg and Karelia. Bus tour from Moscow

Happy New Year!

A late breakfast buffet at the hotel.

Bus tour "Winter holidays".

Getting to know the festive city, the central squares decorated with New Year's beauties-Christmas trees.

A retrospective of the traditions of New Year and Christmas celebrations in St. Petersburg from past eras.

Free time.

Breakfast buffet at the hotel

Transfer to Karelia.

Today we are going to Ladoga Karelia.

Sortavale city tour.

Karelia is a land that attracts with the beauty of northern nature, and Sortavala is a unique city where three eras and two cultures are intertwined.

Only here the flavor of the Russian North harmoniously coexists with Scandinavian Art Nouveau, merging into a single whole.

You will learn how the history of three countries — Russia, Sweden, and Finland — influenced the formation and development of Sortavala.

Sortavala is called the capital of the Northern Ladoga region.

We will see the preserved layout and buildings of the European city, and in the city center we will consider buildings in the style of Northern Art Nouveau, neoclassicism and functionalism, which were designed by the most famous Finnish architects — Ulberg, Saarinen, Arenberg.

Lunch at a cafe.

Visit to the Ruskeala Mountain Park.

Dumas wrote: "I was destined to see the quarries of Ruskyala, because it was from here that the stone for St. Isaac's Cathedral was mainly mined."

The Ruskeala marble deposit originated as a result of complex tectonic processes 12 thousand years ago.

With the coming to power of Catherine II, large-scale searches for natural stone for the construction of St. Petersburg began in Russia, and it was found in Ruskale.

Ruskeala is a tourist park in Karelia, based on the site of an abandoned marble deposit.

It covers an area of several tens of kilometers. In the 18th century, marble was mined here for St. Isaac's Cathedral, Kazan Cathedral, Mikhailovsky Castle, Marble Palace, and triumphal columns in Tsarskoye Selo and Gatchina.

Transfer to Sortavala.

At the end of the tour, transfer to Kondopoga.

Arrival in Kondopoga at about 23:00.

Accommodation at the Karelia 3* hotel.

Breakfast at the hotel is a buffet.

Departure for the excursion program.

Nature reserve and waterfall "Kivach".

A pleasant addition to the raging water element will be a grove of Karelian birch, which has become an ornament of the arboretum of the reserve.

This is a mystery tree with amazing marble-patterned wood.

Even in the 21st century, there is a debate among scientists about its origin.

We return to Kondopoga.

"Karelian upper room".

At the national master classes we will get acquainted with the traditional culture of the northern people and the peculiarities of the region.

Let's sit down at a wide table and, under the guidance of an experienced craftsman, prepare traditional rupittetu (gates) from rye flour.

We will learn a lot of interesting things about the history of the Karelian doll and work on making a souvenir from Karelia.

The result of the work will be a charm doll.

Let's touch the strings of the ancient Finno-Ugric kantele and get our first lessons on the instrument.

Let the "Karelian psaltery" sing about the wind, about a warm house, there will always be happiness and prosperity in it.

The song "Letka–enka" will play and beckon you to take each other's hands.

Let's hug a friend by the shoulders, wink at a friend in a Finnish dance.

Tea drinking with products of our own production – gates.

Lunch at the hotel buffet.

Small walking sightseeing tour of Kondopoga.

The city is comfortably located on the shores of Lake Onega.

Let's get acquainted with its sights.

"Konda" – "pine" – "poga" – "corner" can be proud not only of the best "ship" pines in Russia, but also architectural masterpieces made of glass and stone.

The Ice Palace has no equal in the Northwest, the Palace of Arts is a stone wonder made of granite and marble.

His pride is two organs – a big German one and a small French one.

Musical carillons with their melodious bells slowly count down the city time.

Today, the familiar melodies are just for you!

The festive program "Visiting the Snow Maiden Lumine and Santa Claus".

Let's get acquainted with the mischievous Lumine brothers – Lumi Kelloja snow bells.

We take luck, ingenuity, and lots of laughter from their magic bag and spin in a whirlwind of fun and entertainment.

The program includes "adventure trail" (traditional Karelian games and crafts), a comic contest "Come on, sledge, run yourself...".

We won't have to fish a pike out of a cold hole – the LumiKelloja brothers will help us turn into real kayaks, teach us how to assemble a team correctly and show us how to control a sled.

"Freaky gatherings around a hot campfire."

We will learn from the hospitable host of winter how the Karelians celebrated the New Year, play fun games and taste delicious tea according to an old recipe.

A photo stop at a hot campfire on reindeer skins with the heroes of the holiday and a surprise from Lumine with good wishes for the coming year.

Visit to the kennel of sled dogs.

*Dinner at the hotel cafe. The cost is 520 rubles/person (optional, on-site payment).

Breakfast at the hotel is a buffet.

Room release.

Departure to Staraya Ladoga village.

Many historians believe that it was here, and not in Novgorod, that the first capital of Russia was located.

It was in Staraya Ladoga in 862 that the legendary Rurik began to rule, called upon to "rule" the Slavic and Finno-Ugric tribes.

Trade routes "from the Varangians to the Greeks" and "from the Varangians to the Khazars" passed through this settlement on the Volkhov River.

It is believed that the city was founded in 753, but people have lived here since the 5th-6th centuries.

Guided tour of the Old Ladoga Fortress.

Lunch at a cafe.

14:00 Departure to Moscow.

Return to Moscow is approximately 24:00-00:30.