Two summers ago, while in Russia for a meeting of the US-Russia Bilateral Presidential Commission’s Sub-Working Group on Media, I took a little time to pop up from Saint Petersburg to Karelia. I spent a few days in Petrozavodsk, on Lake Onego, which is the jumping off point for a visit to Kizhi Pogost, a World Heritage Site on an island in the massive lake.

It's a beautiful place to walk around for an afternoon, though a bit overrun with tourists. The Church of the Transfiguration, a beautiful wooden structure topped with dozens of cupolas, was first built sometime in the early 1700s and happened to be under renovation while I was there (you can see a little piece of equipment in the picture above).

The site was a bit like one of those historical village places throughout New England and the midwest. There were people dressed in period garb doing chores and crafts typical of the area a few centuries before. Beautiful church bells rang out periodically, as you can hear in the short video I recorded below:

On the back side of the island is a small area popular with locals for swimming. It was the perfect antidote to the warm weather before getting back on a hydrofoil for the hour or so ride back to Petrozavodsk.

By the way, here are a few pictures from my short time in Saint Petersburg during that trip.

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