Beautiful Kandalaksha – a new, undiscovered tourist destination by the White Sea
Travelling eastward along Barents Road, the fi rst Russian city to crop up after the border is Kandalaksha. A community with a dramatic history, it lies nestled in natural beauty on the White Sea. This is an area well worth a visit, a ”mere” 500 km from the eastern Swedish border.
It’s often said that the journey is worth the trip, but in Kandalaksha’s case, the destination is the highlight. Once you’ve passed the border crossing at Salla, the road is lined with memories from the Great Patriotic War, as World War II was called in Russia. Large stone monuments with flowers, rusty shell cases and helmets are reminders of the battles on the Finnish- Russian front.
The first stretch runs through former Finnish territory. Finland was forced to cede the old church town of Kuolajärvi and the border district to the Soviet Union after the war. After 70 km, the little military town of Alakurtti comes up on the left side. Turning in towards the town, you first pass large rows of flats and a small market place with booths and stalls. In the distance, you can glimpse a brand new housing area with modern residential blocks. This is the officers’ village, built with German money for Soviet officers stationed in the former East Germany.
Kandalaksha lies 120 km to the east. The road is in good condition and passes through a pleasantly hilly, forested landscape. The last bit is a downhill ride towards a narrow bay of the White Sea. Down there, furthest in on the bay, lies the city of Kandalaksha, surrounded by huge, rounded mountains and with a beautiful archipelago beyond. This is the most beautiful region of the White Sea, in the southeastern corner of this stretch of Barents Road.
REINDEER PASTURE. With its strategic location at the mouth of the Imandra lake river system and situated on a deep bay, Kandalaksha is one of the Kola Peninsula’s oldest towns. The place was mentioned as early as the 11th century but was officially founded in the 16th century. A city charter was not granted until 1938 when the city was transferred from Karelia to the newly formed Murmansk County.
The learned disagree on the origin of the name. One hypothesis is that it originates from the Sami language and would mean “dry place by the bay”, in other words a suitable grazing area for reindeer. The town is called Kantalahti in Finnish (lahti means bay), which can lead thoughts to Gandavik (“Gand” bay) from Old Norse, the place the Norwegian chief, Ottar, sailed to as early as the 9th century during the early Viking period. In 1589, Swedish-Finnish troups attacked the strategic town and burned down the monastery among other things. There are also reminders from more recent acts of war in central Kandalaksha, where a large T-34 tank stands on a high pedestal in the middle of the large town square, pointing its long gun barrel.
With its 46,000 inhabitants, Kandalaksha today is an orderly, relaxed, industrial town and an important hub. Railways, main roads and sea routes meet here. There is a hint of the old Kandalaksha out along the bay in a district with timbered, Russian wooden houses and kitchen gardens. There is also a popular bathing beach here, where the local people seize every opportunity to take a dip in the White Sea.
ALUMINIUM AND VODKA. In the distance, off in the eastern section of the town, loom the tall, red and white smokestacks of the aluminium smelting plant. Down at the dock, ships are loading goods to be transported to distant arctic places, like Dudinka and Tiksi along the Northeast Passage. In an anonymous building on the outskirts of town, glass clinks on the conveyor belt at the Virma vodka factory. About a dozen varieties of vodka are produced here, many of them flavoured with northern ingredients. The factory’s management is also trying to get a stake in the increasingly popular type of weaker alcoholic mixed beverages. Sister city collaboration with the Swedish town of Piteå is amongst the most active in the Barents region. The Workers’ Educational Association (ABF) in Piteå has invested in adult education based on the Swedish model and initiated establishment of an active sister organisation, an ABF in Kandalaksha. There they have study circles with subjects like language, cooking, and more.
Useful information can also be obtained from the Museum of History, located a few blocks from the town square. You can read about the 1938 crash of the V6 airship outside the city, how the aluminium factory opened in 1951 or how two powerful earthquakes shook the area in 1955.
A NATIONAL PARK IN THE ARCHIPELAGO. A suitable car excursion leads eastward out of town, over the magnificent mountain. From up here there is a vast view over the pine-clad archipelago, a national park since 1932, with a large bird population. Over two hundred bird species, including a large eider colony, have been counted at the ornithological research station. Down along the seashore you’ll fi nd a huge stone labyrinth like the ones common along the North Bothnian Coast.
About 20 km east of town lies Kolvitsa, a beautiful Pomor village where some of the elders still speak the Finnish-Karelian dialect. Another 30 or so kilometres further on along the Ter Coast is the community of Umba, internationally known for its salmon river that runs along the Khibini mountains on the Kola Peninsula. The road becomes increasingly narrow, and if you continue on just over 100 km along the coast, you’ll come to Varzuga, the village with the magnificent, famous wooden church.
It can be said that Kandalaksha represents the gateway to the Kola Peninsula. Barents Road turns north here, towards the final destination of Murmansk. The road passes through the region’s industrial belt with mines and metal industries, but the beauties of nature are never far off. A little ways north are the Khibini Mountains and one of European Russia’s few winter sport resorts, the town of Kirovsk. Lapland National Park, where wild reindeer still roam the mountains, lies further on. The journey has only just begun. Read more about Kandalaksha: www.barentsroad.org
This article was orginally published in the Barents Road Magazine.