The "planned" rate 1 ski route was started several tens of miles to the north from Karelia's capital Petrozavodsk. We used peasant's houses for the night stops, which made our backpacks much lighter, because it was unnecessary to carry tents and sleeping bags. 

We spent the first night in this snow-clad house. The hostess was elderly and slightly mentally sick women. She alternated some strange and unclear songs with the plaintive story about communists, who ruined her house in the twenties by stealing all of her icons. It was the beginning of the eighties and we did not understand a bitter reality behind of this story.

It's so nice to glide over the soft ski track in such a sunny and frosty day. And if you take off your skis and step off the trail, you'll suddenly sink in snow up to your waist.

The spruce forest alternates with a birchwood; the plane land changes to the slight hills.

From the hilltops we can see the endless forest and the snowfields. The air is so clear it's possible to drink it.

Karelia, as well as the neighbor Finland, is the land of the many lakes. In the lakes and outstreaming rivers there is a lot of fish.

I'm 18 here and it is my first serious journey. So, in such a romantic ambience it is inevitably to fall in love. 

Lyuda is going to be a civil engineer in the near future. She'll complete the University of Petrozavodsk in one year.

Karelia is one of the greatest places for the ski backpacking. It's really near from the middle areas of Russia, there is relatively mild climate and excellent forests. Up to now, in the Karelian forests there is plenty of wild animals and birds and, in the summer, mushrooms and berries.

After the route's finish, after the genuine Russian bathhouse (sauna) in the birchen cabin log and with the birchen blooms we took an excursion. Here are located mineral springs and balneary. A legend says this chapel was erected in honor of the Russian czar (king) Peter I, who visited this northern resort.