Arkhangelsk is a popular tourist rout, famous for its numerous cultural and historical monuments, as well as for inspiring and picturesque nature. Among the most distinguishing regional sights there are the Solovetskie Islands - a unique archipelago in the White Sea; Malye Korely – a museum of wooden architecture; and the Kenozerski National Park. Apart from the sightseeing mentioned above, Arkhangelsk Region is also proud of its rich museum collections, architectural monuments and unique souvenir production.

Souvenirs

Arkhangelsk is famous for its gifted craftsmen and their exquisite works. Special attention deserve the Kargopol toys. These painted clay figures can well compete with another famous Russian souvenirs - Dymkovo toys.

istinctive local souvenir production also includes bone carving in Kholmogory. This craft started in the region in the XVII century and, as time passed, a distinguishing technique of artistic carving developed. Today one can observe the process of the curving and buy unique souvenirs that will remind of Arkhangelsk.

Museums: Arkhangelsk Literary Museum, Arkhangelsk Regional Museum of Local Lore, State museum association Art Culture of the Russian North, State Northern Sea Museum, Aircraft of the North Museum, Small Korela Museum of Wooden Architecture, and Red Smithy Museum of ship-repair yard.

Architecture and Sights

The city extends along the bank of Severnaya Dvina. In 1794 the city came to be built up according to a regular plan, which included earlier constructed stone buildings into the system of a new city space with wide streets parallel to the embankment. Modern Arkhangelsk is a newly constructed port city built up on the project of 1950, which has kept its basic network of streets, but has increased up to 40 km of extent along the bank of Northern Dvina.

The Gostini Dvor, the Customs Palace, tower and the exchange house building (the end of 18 century) have remained. In the northern part of the city, a former garrison settlement there is a baroque Trinity Church (1745). A number of preserved wooden houses of the late 19th - early 20th centuries have been moved and rebuilt in one of Arkhangelsk’s old streets, which has become a pedestrian reserved zone.

In the downtown there are monuments to Mikhail Lomonosov (set up in 1832, created by sculptor I.P. Martos in 1826-29) and to Peter I (set up in 1914, created by sculptor M.M. Antokolsky in 1872).

Within the city of Arkhangelsk there is Solombala Island - a former naval center of Arkhangelsk, nowadays one of the industrial regions, which harbours old wooden buildings (early 18th century) and the Admiralty building (1820). Stone buildings of the 18th -19th centuries have partially remained there.

A ferroconcrete suspension bridge (1956) over River Kuznechikha as well as a railway bridge (1964) connecting the center of Arkhangelsk with new regions on the left bank, and a highway bridge (1990) play an important role.

In the delta of Northern Dvina, in the vicinities of Arkhangelsk there is an old Pomor settlement named Konetsdvorye: it represents old wooden houses and the Mikhail Archangel Church with a belltower (1769).

25 km to the south of Arkhangelsk, upstream Northern Dvina, near the villages of Bolshye and Malye Karely there is the Arkhangelsk Museum of Wooden Architecture, which has collected numerous monuments of the 16th – early 20th centuries from different regions of the Russian North.

At the distance of 75 km from Arkhangelsk there is Kholmogory Settlement, which is known since the 14th century. From 1707 it was Kolmogory trading quarter attributed to Arkhangelsk, and from 1770 it became a district town of the Arkhangelsk Province. Its southern suburb boasts the most ancient of the preserved stone constructions of Nizhny Podvinya - the monumental five-domed Spaso-Preobrazhensky Cathedral with a low domed belltower (1683-91) and the two-storeyed Hierarchal Chambers (1688-89).

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