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 Christmas beauties-Christmas trees.

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

Free time.

Breakfast at the hotel is a buffet

Moving 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 epochs and two cultures are intertwined. 

Only here the flavor of the Russian North harmoniously coexists with Scandinavian modernism, 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 the cafe.

Visit to the Ruskeala Mountain Park.

Dumas wrote: "I was doomed 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 Ruskeala. 

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 XVIII century, marble was mined here for St. Isaac's Cathedral, Kazan Cathedral, Mikhailovsky Castle, Marble Palace, 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 pattern wood. 

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

We return to Kondopoga.

"Karelian 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 amicably at a wide table and, under the guidance of an experienced master, 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 the first lessons of playing the instrument. 

Let the "Karelian gusli" 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 to take each other's hands. 

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

Tea drinking with products of our own production – wickets. 

Lunch at the hotel is a buffet.

A short walking sightseeing tour of the city of Kondopoga. 

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

Let's get acquainted with its sights. 

"Konda" – "pine" – "poga" – "corner" can be proud of not only 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 large German one and a small French one. 

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

Today, 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 – snow bells Lumi Kelloja.

We take luck, ingenuity, a lot 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 will not 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 the technique of driving a sledge.

"Freaky gatherings around a hot campfire."

We will find out 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 by a hot campfire on reindeer skins with the heroes of the holiday and a surprise from Lumine with good wishes for the coming year. 

Visiting a sled dog kennel.

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

Breakfast at the hotel is a buffet.

Room release.

Departure to the village of Staraya Ladoga.

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

It was in Staraya Ladoga in 862 that the legendary Rurik began to rule, called upon to "reign" by 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 V-VI centuries.

Tour of the Old Ladoga fortress.

Lunch at the cafe.

14:00 Departure to Moscow. 

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