Tastes of Karelia: Winter

After meeting at Sortavala railway station, travel by bus to a pier on Lake Ladoga, then take an airboat to an island in the heart of the Ladoga skerries. The lake transfer takes 20-30 minutes. A welcome breakfast at Lago Ladoga glamping is followed by the day's activities.

Join a guide on a specially designed walking route around Khavus Island, lasting 3 hours and covering approximately 3 km. The highlight is Haukkariutta rock, whose Finnish name means “falcon reef”: from a height of more than 40 metres, it overlooks the Ladoga skerries.

During the walk, enjoy a picnic lunch and a workshop on making a hearty soup with ingredients from the land: mushrooms, plants and other ingredients selected for the agreed halal menu. Back at the glamping site, there is free time to relax by the fireplace; skiing and snowshoeing are possible only when snow conditions allow.

Before dinner, a dessert workshop explores Karelian sweets: what they were like in earlier times, how they were served, and their links with magic. With the chef's help, make your own traditional Karelian dessert using modern equipment rather than the oven in which these sweets were originally made.

The guide will talk about Karelian traditions, including food customs, before dinner featuring elements of Karelian cuisine. An optional furako bath on the shore of Lake Ladoga is available at an additional charge, listed below.

Begin with a Karelian-style breakfast and the guide's introduction to Lake Ladoga. Then explore the Ladoga skerries by motorboat or airboat, with climbs to panoramic viewpoints, on an excursion lasting approximately 3 hours.

The skerries are an archipelago in northern Lake Ladoga: many small rocky islands separated by channels. Their distinctive “reef mountains” drop into the lake as sheer cliffs reaching up to 80 metres. Along the route, a hot picnic lunch includes fish cooked on a log, sbiten, and other food.

After the excursion, relax with board games in the large dome, sit by the fireplace, or walk around the glamping grounds.

The gravlax workshop introduces the fish of local rivers and lakes and traditional preparation methods still used today. Take part in preparing and salt-curing rainbow trout.

In the evening, dinner is served in the panoramic lounge overlooking Lake Ladoga. Northern and Karelian dishes include Finnish egg salad with red caviar, trout patties, and Karelian pies with white fish or a sweet berry filling.

After breakfast, learn to make kalitki, traditional Karelian pastries with customary fillings and a symbol of the republic. Explore old baking techniques and the food traditions of ceremonial baking, then make your own kalitka.

Have lunch at the glamping site, take an airboat to the pier in Sortavala, and transfer to Ruskeala Mountain Park, a 1-hour journey from the pier. The guide will lead an above-ground tour of the park.

Ruskeala's marble quarry is a Russian cultural heritage site where extraction began in 1765. Its marble was used to finish the walls of St Isaac's Cathedral and the Ladozhskaya and Primorskaya metro stations in St Petersburg.

Return to Sortavala on the Ruskeala Express, a steam-hauled heritage tourist train. It follows the overland route used to transport Ruskeala marble to Lake Ladoga. The interior takes its style from the carriage in which Auguste de Montferrand, chief architect of St Isaac's Cathedral in St Petersburg, travelled to Ruskeala.

Finish with a guided evening walk and stories about Sortavala, a visit to a souvenir shop, and departure for home. Clubok arranges dinner before your onward journey.