Kizhi Island Open Air Museum on Lake Onega - Karelia, Russia

Kizhi Island is one of over 1650 islands in Lake Onega, the second largest lake in Europe. Lake Onega is found in the Republic of Karelia, and Kizhi is one of the largest outdoor museums in Russia. Kizhi focuses on peasant life and customs in the Russian north and includes 83 wooden structures, most of which date back to the 18th or 19th century.

Kizhi Island is often included as a port of call on Russian Waterways cruises between St. Petersburg and Moscow. The museum has been a UNESCO World Heritage site since 1990. The open air exhibit includes churches, homes, and other old wooden buildings that were either built on Kizhi or have been collected from around northern Russia and preserved on Kizhi.

We visited Kizhi for a day from the Grand Circle M/S Rossia and loved walking around and learning about this fascinating part of the world. It was a rainy day, but the trails were wooden or paved, so we just wore our rain suits and carried umbrellas.