- A 4x4 discovery trip around the WW II history sites in extreme North of Russia -
The 69th parallel is the northernmost part Russia, a land of midnight sun and unique austere beauty with sea cliffs and mountainous tundra carpeted with dwarf birch and lichens. Scarred by World War II, this region has many non-healing wounds. Our off-road tour will follow the sites breathing with the history, we will ride along the old war road, look into deserted caves and climb nameless hills that are still banded with trenches and rusty barbed wire…
Type: 4 x 4 off-road (in Russian 4x4 cars UAZ for 3 pax or Russian Army truck GAZ-66 for 12 persons)
Duration: 7 days / 6 nights
Length: 670 km
Group size: min 6 persons, max 24 persons
Special requirements: good physical shape; prior booking (min 1 month) for completing formalities to get access to the RF northern military zone
Season: June – mid-September
Day 1
Arrive in Murmansk, meeting at the airport. Set off by off-road cars for the left bank of the Zapadnaya Litsa river to sense the history, along the front roads built by Germans to the German lines of defense and further to the Kat mountain, German stronghold during WWII with trench shelters, caves, spitfire stations. 85 km paved roads, 30 km dirt and off-road. Lunch on the way.
Set a tent camp, dinner cooked over the campfire, overnight in tents.
Day 2
Breakfast. Continue to Titovka river along a highly complex and scenic German war road, pass over the Musta Tunturi mountain range stretching along the Arctic shore (place of many battles, the only site where German troops could not violate the on-land border of Russia), descend to the sea – Malaya Volokovaya Bay. 60 km off-road, 30 km dirt road.
Lunch en route. Dinner, overnight in tents.
Day 3
Breakfast. Start along the route Malaya Volokovaya Bay – WWII Soviet seaside battery on Sredny peninsula – Dva Brata cliff, an ancient Saami sacrid site – Bolshoye Ozerko village (Rybachy peninsula) – Skorbeevskaya Bay. 85 km dirt road. Lunch en route. Dinner, overnight in tents.
Day 4
Breakfast. Stay during the day on the shore of the Arctic Ocean, walk to the waterfall, Skorbeevka river’s estuary and enjoy the rocks, tundra vast expanse, unsetting sun above the ocean. Set off by off-road car for Nemetsky Bay, the northernmost point of European Russia. 30 km. Lunch, dinner, overnight in tents.
Day 5
Breakfast. Continue to Bolshoye Ozerko village and Kutovaya Bay, further to Musta Tunturi mountain range. 70 km dirt road. Lunch en route. Dinner, overnight in tents.
Day 6
Breakfast. Walk to the German and Soviet positions on the Musta Tunturi mountain range. Continue the off-road tour to Novaya Titovka, German fortified zone Oberhof, pass by waterfall and ruins of a Finnish mill. 60 km dirt and off-road. Lunch en route. Dinner, overnight at the Titovka motel
Day 7
Breakfast. Go to the Trifono-Pechengsky monastery, the northernmost Orthodox outpost (60 km paved roads). Visit the monument in the Valley of Glory (Death Valley in wartime). Afternoon transfer to the railway station/airport in Murmansk. 100 km of asphalt roads.
