Kotlas: Walks and Railway History

Get to know Kotlas through its walks and urban history: the Kotlas Local History Museum offers various tours, and walking routes pass through historic parts of the city. There is also the story of steam locomotive L-5129, which provides a tangible connection to the town’s railway history. When planning your trip, you can choose between guided tours, a self-guided audio tour, and individual cultural sites.

City History on Foot and in the Museum

The Kotlas Local History Museum’s introductory tour is intended for visitors to the city. It spans the period from the earliest times to the beginning of the 20th century and covers the history of both Kotlas and the district. If you would like to explore the city centre on foot, consider the museum tour “Secrets of Old Kotlas.” It passes through the historic city centre and along Uritskogo, Lunacharskogo, Karl Marx, Melentyeva and Lenin streets.

Another walking tour offered by the museum is titled “Between the River and the Railway.” It passes through the city’s oldest riverside neighbourhood, whose history is connected with important milestones in Kotlas’s history. On the interactive “Moy gorod” (“My City”) tour, participants learn about Kotlas’s landmarks and their history. The tours have different focuses: a broad historical overview, the streets of the city centre, an old riverside neighbourhood, or the city’s landmarks.

Explore at Your Own Pace

The “Kot-peshekhod” pedestrian tourist route is designed for recreation and leisure for residents and visitors during their stay in Kotlas. A post dated 30 November 2023 presents it as a tourist walking route that can be explored independently with an audio guide. This makes it different in format from the guided tours offered by the local history museum: here, the focus is on independent exploration with audio.

The local history museum also lists a short, 1 km route. It passes architectural and sculptural monuments from different eras and presents Kotlas’s history from the earliest times to the present day. At 1 km long, the route is easy to fit into your day’s plans.

Monuments, the Railway Station Area and Other Places

A guided excursion around Kotlas takes participants in turn to the Kotlas Temple Complex and the architectural ensemble of the station square, including the river and railway stations. Other stops include the monument to V. I. Lenin and the locomotive monument, the monument to the fighters of the Northern Dvina River Flotilla, Dvinopark, and the Kotlas Local History Museum building. This walking tour brings together several different themes in sequence: architecture, monuments, transport history and urban history.

The monument to steam locomotive L-5129 commemorates a locomotive that played a part in the development and opening up of the North. It was built in 1950 and operated on the Kotlas–Kirov, Kotlas–Konosha and Kotlas–Vorkuta lines from 1955 to 1972. The monument can therefore be connected with a specific history of service: the year it was built, its years in service and the three routes are all part of this locomotive’s story.

Other places mentioned in Kotlas include Dvinopark amusement park at 32 Vinogradova Street, a climbing wall at 16a Konstitutsii Street, and the Kotlas Drama Theatre at 64 VII Syezda Sovetov Street. The monument to N. G. Kuznetsov stands at 30 Mayakovskogo Street. If you plan to visit any of these places, check access arrangements in advance; for the theatre, its current programme is also important to your visit.

Cultural Heritage in Arkhangelsk Oblast

Arkhangelsk Oblast also offers examples of cultural and historical heritage. The cultural and historical complex of the Solovetsky Archipelago includes medieval road and irrigation systems harmoniously integrated into the surrounding natural and cultural landscape. The complex also includes a monastery fortress dating from the 15th to the early 20th century, as well as sacred sites and dozens of settlements dating from the 6th to the 1st millennium BC.

Another regional example is the Malye Korely Museum: its architectural and landscape exhibition includes more than 100 monuments of wooden architecture from Arkhangelsk Oblast. The museum is also included in the state register of especially valuable cultural heritage sites of the peoples of the Russian Federation. These examples add different forms of cultural heritage to the picture of the region: historic complexes and settlements on the Solovetsky Archipelago, and wooden architecture in an extensive museum exhibition.

When choosing a holiday apartment in Kotlas, you can base your decision on how you would like to spend your days: would you prefer guided museum tours and city walks, or to explore the city independently with an audio guide?

Discover more destinations: Konda, Kapustniki, Karpogory, Severodvinsk, Onega, Kharitonovo, Plesetsk, Blagoveshchenskoye.

For the main travel overview: Arkhangelsk Oblast.