A rather boring 5½ hour drive from St Petersburg took us to the shores of Lake Onega and the city of Petrozavodsk in Karelia. Across the lake is the island of Kizhi, most famous for its museum of wooden architecture and one of the main stopping points for all cruise boats that ply the route between Moscow and St Petersburg.

The following morning we made the one hour fifteen minute journey across to Kizhi by hydrofoil. The wooden churches and other buildings on this tiny island are probably the most widely photographed of any building in Russia and justifiably so. Built entirely of wood and without a nail, they are individually wonderful examples of 18th century Russian architecture. The main church, the church of the Transfiguration, is still used by the inhabitants of the small village the priest was one of those charismatic individuals who would fill a Sunday service.

We returned the same way to Petrozavodsk in time to catch a train north towards Kem on the shore of the White Sea. The landscape, as with most of Russia, was largely flat, a repetitive scene of silver birch, conifer and ugly nameless towns. We followed the path of the Belamorsky canal, built in Soviet times at terrible human cost to link the White Sea and Lake Onega. 7½ later we arrived and bundled into our 2 star hotel for what was left of the night.

After breakfast we climbed aboard the 50ft boat that was to take us on the two hour trip across to Solovki - luckily it was flat calm. Lying in the White Sea at 65º north, the Solovetski archipelago comprises a number of islands of which Solovki is the largest. Measuring 15 x 10 miles it first comes to notice in the 15th century when two monks landed there to escape the excesses of life in Russia and to find solitude and prayer. Over the years other monks joined them and a monastery developed which became one of the most important in Russia. Due to its strategic position and its proximity to Sweden, with whom Russia was constantly battling, the building was surrounded by huge walls and served as a fortress. In the 17th century it became a refuge for the Old Believers and withstood a siege for 8 years before being captured after which many of the monks were executed. It slowly regained its prosperity and prominence as a place of pilgrimage but curiously also served as a prison for dissolute monks and priests. In 1920, following the revolution it was closed, but in 1923 it became the first, and probably most infamous, gulag in Russia and it was here that every form of human degradation and torture was perfected. At the outbreak of WWII it was at last closed. Today there are 40 monks in the monastery and 1,000 residents in the small village and the many cathedrals and churches are slowly being restored.

The island is heavily forested and dotted with over 500 lakes of varying sizes which are inter-connected by a man made (slave made) canal system. Churches in various places and small fishing settlements. Canals were used to bring fresh water to the monastery and, in gulag times, as a method of transporting trees felled for export.

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