Kondopoga is located in Karelia on the shores of Lake Onega, 50 km
from Petrozavodsk. The second largest city in the republic is strikingly
different from the first and is completely focused on the local pulp and
paper mill - a source of improvement, prosperity, Soviet buildings and
choking smoke. Kondopoga is one of those places where you are unlikely
to go on purpose, but, on the other hand, it is conveniently located on
the way to the Kivach waterfall and many other Karelian attractions.
Kondopoga stands between two lakes: on the one hand, the Kondopoga
Bay of Lake Onega, and on the other, Nugozero, now connected to the
Onega channel and becoming part of it. The location on the ridge with
the expanse of water stretching in all directions is perhaps the best
thing the city has. Its buildings and environment in general are of
unconditional ethnographic interest, but aesthetically they are less
attractive.
The name Kondopoga consists of two parts - konda and
poga. There is no clarity about each of them separately, but both are
place names common in this area. “Konda” can mean, for example, a high
place, and “poga” is the Finnish pohja modified in the Russian manner,
that is, the bottom or, more likely, the corner, the far edge of the
bay. The two-part nature of the name leads to confusion with the accent.
Locals always put it on the first syllable, although more and more
non-locals speak Kondopoga, so that some dictionaries are beginning to
consider this option acceptable.
The village with this name was
first mentioned in chronicles in 1495. Before the revolution, it was not
of great importance, although in the 18th century a marvelous (and,
unfortunately, lost in 2018) wooden church was erected on the shore of
the lake, but the station of the Murmansk railway opened in 1916 was
called Kivach, as if the villages of Kondopoga were not here was: it was
indeed located away from the modern city. Everything changed with the
advent of Soviet power, which provided for the construction of a
hydroelectric power station and a pulp and paper mill as part of the
industrialization program. A factory village began to grow around them,
receiving city status in 1938.
The environment of Kondopoga is
typical of cities of that time: a mixture of wooden barracks and
low-rise post-war buildings in the yellow tones characteristic of
provincial Stalinism. Unlike its southern peers (Kirovsk, Volkhov,
Boksitogorsk), Kondopoga was built without a regular plan and is
architecturally very ordinary. Some comfort appeared in the city in the
post-Soviet era, when the director of the pulp and paper mill Vitaly
Federmesser made a lot of efforts to build public buildings, install
monuments and general improvement, which, however, did not give
immediate results: on the contrary, in 2006 the whole country learned
about Kondopoga because the interethnic conflict that arose here, in
which several people died, and a raging crowd burned down a restaurant
owned by Caucasians. The consequences have long been eliminated, and now
Kondopoga looks much better than the depressive northern Karelian
regional centers: fountains, modern monuments, the Ice Palace and other
ambitious buildings of modern times. However, smoke from the Pulp and
Paper Mill, Russia’s main producer of newsprint, is still hanging over
the houses.
Tourists visit Kondopoga only when passing to the
Kivach waterfall or simply along the Murmansk highway. In general, there
is no point in staying here for the night, since Petrozavodsk is close
and in all respects more attractive. A couple of hours is enough to
explore the city.
1 Nativity Church, at the beginning of Proletarskaya Street.
2 Post office building, Proletarskaya st. 27.
3 Kirch of the
Ascension of Christ, st. Zavodskaya.
4 Carillon at the Ice Palace,
st. Bumazhnikov.
5 Carillon on Proletarskaya (corner of Maxim Gorky
Street).
6 Kondopoga hydroelectric power station.
1 Museum of Local Lore, Proletarskaya st. 13. Mon–Thu 10:00–18:00,
Sun 10:00–17:00, break: 13:00–14:00.
2 Palace of Culture, st.
Bumazhnikov, 1. ☎ +7 (81451) 7-70-45. The concert hall, a branch of the
Karelian State Philharmonic, is the only hall in Russia with two organs,
one of which is the fifth largest in Russia. Organ music festivals are
held annually. The café is open during concerts. Rich (for a provincial
town) interior: winter garden, fountains.
3 Ice Palace and Sports
Palace , Stroitelnaya st., 2. ☎ +7 (911) 410-81-45. Ice skating,
exercise equipment. Ice shows are held from time to time.
By train
Kondopoga is the first major station after Petrozavodsk,
the journey takes about an hour. All Murmansk trains stop (4-5 times a
day in each direction), electric trains run twice a day: to Petrozavodsk
1 hour 15 minutes, to Medvezhyegorsk 2 hours 15 minutes.
Railway
station, at the end of Proletarskaya Street.
By bus
Buses from
Petrozavodsk 1-2 times per hour, the journey takes a little over an
hour. Also in Kondopoga there is a night bus to Pudozh and a day bus to
Segezha - both via Medvezhyegorsk; other northbound buses bypass the
city along the highway.
Bus station. ☎ +7 (81451) 2-14-44.
By car
Along the federal highway P21 (E105) “Kola”, 55 km from
Petrozavodsk, 110 km from Medvezhyegorsk.
The main form of public transport in the city is buses. There are also several private taxi services.
1 Cafe “Ben and Jerry” , prosp. Kalinina, 4. Mon–Fri 10:00–20:00,
Sat–Sun 11:00–20:00. A cafe-confectionery, and suddenly in the American
style: it appeared in the early 1990s, when the creator of Ben&Jerry's,
a large ice cream manufacturer, who visited Karelia, decided to open a
small business here. Since then, the owners have changed, the products
in the cafe are now, of course, local, but the interior has remained the
same, and in the Karelian outback it looks quite unexpected.
2 Cafe
ze'Bro , Proletarskaya st. 15/14. Mon–Thu 11:00–23:00, Fri 11:00–1:00,
Sat 12:00–1:00, Sun 12:00–23:00. Basically shawarma, but with tables and
a decent stop. There are also salads and pizza.
3 Cafe “Coral”,
Stroitelnaya st. 15. 10:00–20:00, Fri and Sat: until 2:00. Cafe-dining
room, good reviews.
4 Cafe-club (“Teremok”), st. Sovetov, 18 (next
to the Kondopoga hotel).
5 Pizzeria “Mario”, Goristy lane. 21.
Mon–Thu 11:00–22:00, Fri 11:00–4:00, Sat 12:00–4:00, Sun 12:00–22:00.
One of the Kondopoga establishments claiming to be a restaurant. Mostly
good reviews, but in the evening there may be an entrance fee due to the
disco starting later in the evening.
1 Hotel “Kondopoga”, st. Sovetov, 14. ☎ +7 (81451) 7-99-42.
Single/double: 2200/2800 rub. The hotel occupies a new and very
remarkable building in the English style.
2 Hotel “Karelia”
(formerly “Kivach”), pl. Lenin, 5. 500 rub/person. in a shared room,
private room: about 2000 rub. The Soviet-era hotel on the central square
is ugly on the outside, but well renovated on the inside. Rooms with
amenities, mostly good reviews.
You can also stay at one of the
motels on the Kola highway, where conditions are at least no worse than
in the city.
There are a number of hypotheses about the etymology of the toponym. According to E. M. Pospelov, the most realistic version is that the first part of the name - “condo” - comes from the Karelian kondii “bear”, and “poga” - from the Karelian pohja - “far corner, end of the bay, bay”, that is, the name as a whole is interpreted as a “bearish corner”.
The city is located on the shore of the Kondopoga Bay of Lake Onega,
in the depths of the bay, somewhat northeast of the mouth of the Suna
River. To the north of Kondopoga there is Lake Nigozero, from which the
Kondopoga Hydroelectric Power Station canal runs through the city to
Lake Onega.
The distance from Petrozavodsk is 54 km along roads
or 46 km in a straight line on the map.
Geographic latitude -
62°12'. Geographic longitude - 34°16'.
The climate in Kondopoga is moderate continental, with marine
features. Winters are long and summers are short and cool.
The
city is equated to the regions of the Far North.
The first mention of a settlement on the site of the modern city
dates back to 1495.
In the 16th century, there were a number of
small villages in this territory, known from documents of that era.
Until the 18th century, the Kondopoga region was part of the Kizhi
churchyard.
In 1757 and 1764, marble deposits were discovered
near Kondopoga - in the villages of Tivdiya and Belaya Gora - and began
to be intensively developed. Kondopoga became a transshipment point from
where marble was shipped to St. Petersburg.
A significant role in
the history of the village was played by the development of iron ore
deposits, which were transported from here to the metallurgical plants
of Petrovskaya Sloboda and to the Konchezersky plant (Konchezero).
In 1769, an uprising of state peasants assigned to the Olonets
mining factories broke out on the territory of the Kizhi churchyard.
Peasants of the Kondopoga volost also took part in the uprising.
In 1892, there were 48 houses, 300 residents, 2 churches, and a school
in Kondopoga. A fair was held there every year from September 8 to 15.
Nearby was the famous Tivdi marble quarry.
By the beginning of
the 20th century, as a result of administrative-territorial reforms of
the 18th-19th centuries, the Kondopoga volost became part of the
Petrozavodsk district of the Olonets province.
According to
information as of 1911, a two-class zemstvo school and a women's zemstvo
school operated in Kondopoga.
In June 1920, the Karelian Labor Commune was formed in the
territories inhabited by Karelians in the Olonets and Arkhangelsk
provinces. The CPC included the city of Petrozavodsk and the Karelian
volosts of Olonetsky, Petrozavodsky and Povenets districts.
Created in 1921, the Karelian Planning Committee (Karplan) in the first
months of its work began negotiations with the North-Western
Construction Commission (Sevzapstroy) on the construction of a pulp and
paper mill and a hydroelectric power station in Kondopoga according to
the design of Heinrich Graftio. On April 26, 1921, the Council of
People's Commissars of the RSFSR approved the construction project.
However, the food crisis and peasant uprising at the end of the year
forced Karplan to postpone the start of construction.
In the
summer of 1923, the Karelian Labor Commune was transformed into the
Autonomous Karelian Soviet Socialist Republic. At the same time, in
mid-1923, the Karelian Economic Council established the administration
of the Kondostroy project; work began in August. They intended to
complete the project by August 1926. However, due to a lack of funds,
the project was delayed until 1929 - the construction of the
hydroelectric power station was completed at the beginning of the year,
and the pulp and paper mill later.
On August 29, 1927, the
district division of the Autonomous Karelian SSR was abolished. Instead
of counties, districts were formed. On the territory of the Kondopoga
volost of the Petrozavodsk district, the Kondopoga district was formed.
The workers' village of Kondopoga became a regional center.
Since
1931, the village of Kondopoga has been the center of the Kondopoga
region of the Autonomous Karelian SSR.
In 1932-1936, the
Kondopoga fish hatchery operated.
In 1938, Kondopoga acquired the
status of a city.
During the Great Patriotic War, the city was occupied by Finnish troops on November 3, 1941 and liberated on June 28, 1944 by troops of the Karelian Front during the Svir-Petrozavodsk operation.
In the 1950s, Kondopoga was declared an all-Union shock construction site.
At the end of August - beginning of September 2006, mass riots on ethnic grounds occurred in Kondopoga (the reason was the murder of two local residents by Chechens). The events had a great resonance in the media and society. The situation was stabilized only after additional riot police arrived in the city from Petrozavodsk, the departure of a large number of citizens of Chechen nationality, and mass detentions of citizens.