Midnight sun

The Midnight sun (or White Nights) is the «signature» natural phenomenon of the North, when the sun barely falls below the horizon, blazing for several hours everything around with the incredible beauty with light, to immediately give rise to a new day. The Arkhangelsk storyteller and artist Stepan Pisakhov described the white nights as a time «spare to sleep not to lose even one night ... the magic of light and color is on the streets ...».

 photo: Vladislav Heinonen

In the Arkhangelsk region the period of white nights lasts from May to mid-summer. The longest day falls on the second half of June and is approximately 21 hours. However, in the remaining time the sky hardly dies away to give way to twilight. «In summer the sun is up all day and night, and we don’t sleep: we work during the day and we walk at night», said Stepan Pisakhov. And then he gave a practical advice: «If you do not believe me, come and check yourself!»

 photo: Nikolay Vymorkov

Indeed, the white nights are a great time for long walks along the Northern Dvina embankment, from the Gostiny Dvor on Cape Pur- Navolok to Solombala Island, seeing friends and chatting on the benches by the old houses on Chumbarova-Luchinsky Street, river walks on motor ships and a 100-year-old wheeled steamer «N. V. Gogol» . The white nights are even most splendid at the White Sea! Just an hour’s drive from Arkhangelsk by car and the soft waves are smoothly touching warm sand beneath your feet, and the blinding sun on the horizon erases the boundary between the earth and the sky.

 photo: Nikolay Vymorkov

It would be hard to explain what amazing metamorphoses occur during the white nights in nature and man. Here is how Stepan Pisakhov expressed it in his essays: «The sun hangs above the horizon, opposite is the moon, a little golden. ... An even, gentle light surrounded me, and the islands, and all the visible space.» «I spread my arms wide and all at once I felt that the ice, the sea, the rocks, the coast, and those distant islands that could be seen a little, are ALL ME.»

 photo: Nikolay Vymorkov

You can admire the White Nights even in the south of the Arkhangelsk Region — in the merchant town Velsk, on the Cathedral Square of ancient Kargopol, among the white-stone temples of Solvychegodsk or the forests and chapels of Kenozerye. Let alone the northern regions! Feel free to choose any direction — the stone island of Kiy, pines and beaches of the island of Yagry, the Dvina expanse of Kholmogory, the mysterious caves of Pinega, the northernmost in the world Mezen mills. For a deeper dive into the white night we recommend you to go to the legendary Solovetsky Islands, and for gourmet travelers there is a unique opportunity to visit the Russian Arctic National Park, where there is Polar Day in the northernmost point of Eurasia, Cape Fligely.

photo in the upper block: Vladislav Heinonen, Anna Akimenko, Alexey Anisimov, Nikolay Vymorkov, Daria Polozova, Ivan Mityushev