Puffy snow is crispy under your feet, old wooden houses (izbas) are lined along the rural road, landscape is breathing with quietness and coziness, women are heating the stoves and baking kalitki, men are unhurriedly preparing firewood for the winter… We will discover this land, where the Epic Russia is still alive, in the quiet winter season, staying in a traditional house in a tiny 440-years old village called Kinerma. We will learn how to heat the black banya and bake traditional kalitki. We will experience sleeping on the Russian stove and try our luck in ice-angling and enjoy skiing in the silent fairy forest where the trees are bewitched by the winter.
Day 1
Arrive in Petrozavodsk at 06.50 am from St Petersburg or at 08.58 from Moscow, meet your Karelian guide. Transfer downtown to a café. After breakfast, our discovery of the rural Karelia starts with a visit to a very special place in Petrozavodsk – a private gallery by the local artist Tatiana Kalinina. Here we will find out a lot of surprising facts about the traditional pagan beliefs of Karels and their legends while looking at the amazing hand-made dolls personifying different spirits of the forest and house.
From Petrozavodsk, we are heading by a comfortable car/mini-bus for Kinerma, a 440-years old village of Karels-liviks (110 km, appr 1.5 hr). The feeling of harmony embraces every person who comes to this tiny village, where only very few villagers stay over winter.
Our local hostess Nadezhda will welcome us to the traditional old wooden house. She will tell us about the village and will walk us around, take us to the chapel and to a small exhibition on the history of the village.
Lunch of traditional Karelian cuisine will be waiting for us afterwards.
Today, we will get introduced to the rural lifestyle.
First, get ready to learn the receipt and help the hostess in baking the traditional karelian salty pastry – kalitki – in the big Russian oven. Self-made kalitki, with tea from the samovar taste especially delicious. We will also do what the locals used to do their children – we will make with our own hands a traditional ritual Karelian doll, which will become the amulet and best souvenir for your most close people, who could not join this trip and stayed back home.
In the evening, we will enjoy the heat and whisking in the excellent black banya (Russian steam sauna); to heat it up correctly is an art that almost disappeared in Russia. But the master of the house will reveal his secrets, and we will learn how heat the banya - as it should be done traditionally - ourselves.
Dinner and night in the wooden house, in rooms for 2-3 persons (WC facilities outside, banya instead of a shower). Those who wish can stay overnight above the Russian stove, as used to sleep children and women. 
Day 2
After a hearty breakfast, we are leaving for the discovery of the countryside by skis. Put on the thick clothes, choose the skis – and we are slowly going out of the village by skis, breathing in the frosty transparent air, leaving the fresh tracks on the snow and heading for the Vedlozero lake.
On the lake, it is time to drill the ice holes, get the fishing rods in the water… waiting… and here it is – the first fish catch on the snow!
The fresh air awakes the appetite. But we have pastry, hot tea, sausages to be grilled on the fire – everything required for a good picniс.
We will come back to the village in early afternoon. Feel how the unhurried lifestyle in the countryside makes an impression of the Time standing still here. The best way to warm up after the stay outside – banya. Stay over discussion and tea with the hospitable host. In early evening, when it starts getting dark, it is time to leave for Petrozavodsk city (1.5 hrs).
Upon arrival, a tour around the evening city and dinner of the national cuisine in the best restaurant of Petrozavodsk – Karelskaya Gornitsa – are waiting for us.
Transfer to the railway station and departure by a comfortable night train to Moscow or St Petersburg (at 19.00 to Moscow or at 23.00 to St Petersburg).
The Tour Operator has the right to introduce light changes in the itinerary due to the weather conditions.
