Kizhi Pogost (Church of the Transfiguration & Intercession)
Eighteenth-century UNESCO World Heritage timber ensemble on Kizhi Island
Crowned by twenty-two tiered domes shingled in thirty thousand carved aspen shakes that weather to silver.
Petrozavodsk & Kizhi Island, Russia
Ideal: 2 daysBest: May–SepPrice: Moderate
In 60 seconds
Petrozavodsk & Kizhi Island in 60 seconds
Stretching along the western shore of Lake Onega in the Republic of Karelia, Petrozavodsk serves as the waterfront gateway to the UNESCO-listed Kizhi Pogost. Sixty-eight kilometres northeast across the Onega skerries, Kizhi Island preserves the 1714 twenty-two-domed log Church of the Transfiguration, the heated 1764 Church of the Intercession and dozens of traditional Zaonezhye peasant timber houses.
Best for
- UNESCO World Heritage
- Wooden Architecture
- Lake
- Island
- Culture
Known for
- Kizhi Pogost (Church of the Transfiguration & Intercession)
- Onega Lake Embankment, Petrozavodsk
- Zaonezhye & Karelian Village Sector, Kizhi
Skip if
Lake Onega passenger boats to Kizhi only operate during the May–October navigation season.
Your match
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See
Must experience
The things that would make the trip incomplete without them.
Onega Lake Embankment, Petrozavodsk
Granite lakeside promenade lined with international open-air sculptures
Follow the waterfront from the river passenger pier to the eighteenth-century Governor's Park.
Zaonezhye & Karelian Village Sector, Kizhi
Open-air museum of two-storey log farmsteads, chapels, bathhouses and windmills
Includes the fourteenth-century Church of the Resurrection of Lazarus from Muromsky Monastery.
Beyond the obvious
Hidden gems
Less obvious, rarely queued for, and usually the part people remember.
National Museum of the Republic of Karelia
Housed in the 1770s neoclassical buildings on Round (Lenin) Square
Covers Lake Onega Neolithic petroglyphs, Karelian epic poetry (Kalevala) and ironworks history.