hi guys, i am werner aged 50, from Belgium,riding a bmw r1250 gsa(2020), planning a trip to moscow, st-petersburg and murmansk next year. I would like to obtain some useful information( possible budget friendly motorminded hostels, things not to miss, people where i can stay or meet , tourist trap, safety issues etc? if anybody want to join let me know

Check the status of land borders into Russia that have been closed for tourists for the last 20 or so months.

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Welcome to the HUBB Werner.

It's a nice trip up to Murmansk - my favourite area was the Tersky coast - the southern coastline of the Kola peninsula on the White Sea, a really beautiful area with some great views (around Kandalaksha for example) and interesting villages such as Varzuga and Kuzomen (where the road ends).

If you make it upo to Murmansk, I recommend going a bit further to Teriberka, which has a real edge-of-the-world feel to it.

In terms of touristy stuff, there are the Solovetsky Islands and Kizhi pogost on Lake Onega - neither are what I would call a tourist trap however, and almost all the tourists are domestic. Both worth seeing in my opinion.

Another touristy area is the Khibiny mountains on the Kola peninsula, popular with Russians for hiking and skiing. I have not been, but the views look pretty nice.

Between Moscow and St Petersburg I would recommend a stop in (Veliky) Novgorod which has some ancient churches and is one of Russia's oldest cities.

Tver is midly interesting, off the main road you can find the Valdai hills, the highest point of the Eastern European plain and the source of the Volga. It's fun to be able to straddle the Volga with your legs, if you've seen in in southern Russia where often you can't see one side from the other.

I have published my trip to northern European Russia on my website, perhaps it is interesting. https://eurasiaoverland.com/2015/07/04/42ii/

Hopefully Russia will be open for tourism again next year!

EO

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EurasiaOverland a memoir of one quarter of a million kilometres by road through all of the Former USSR, Western and Southern Asia.