The Silver Necklace of Russia: how far every stop is from St Petersburg

The Silver Necklace of Russia is the northern counterpart of the Golden Ring: a cross-regional tourist route linking 11 regions of Russia's North-West. St Petersburg is not merely one of them — it is the gateway. Most trips start here, and the strongest sights on the route are closer to the city than to anywhere else.

There is one catch: the Necklace is enormous. Shlisselburg is an hour away, Syktyvkar is 1,500 kilometres out, and the Solovetsky Islands cannot be reached by car at all. So what follows is not just a list of names but the actual driving distance and time from St Petersburg to every point, so you can see at a glance what fits a weekend and what turns into an expedition.

What the Silver Necklace is

The route covers 11 federal subjects of the North-Western Federal District: St Petersburg, the Leningrad, Novgorod, Pskov, Vologda, Arkhangelsk, Murmansk and Kaliningrad regions, plus Karelia, Komi and the Nenets Autonomous Okrug.

Unlike the Golden Ring, it is neither a closed loop nor a fixed list of towns. It is a framework in which each region shows what it does best: fortresses in the Leningrad region, lakes and wooden architecture in Karelia, monasteries around Vologda, the Arctic in Murmansk. Every year the project names a "capital": Tikhvin in the Leningrad region held the title in 2025, and Kirillov in the Vologda region takes it for 2026.

How far it is from St Petersburg

Distances are measured along the roads from central St Petersburg. The times are free-flow — a floor, not a promise. On a Friday evening, add an hour on any of the main highways out of the city.

Under 150 km — doable in a day — 5 places

150–300 km — a long day or one night — 5 places

300–450 km — a weekend trip — 4 places

Over 450 km — a trip of its own — 10 places

Kaliningrad: close on paper, not by road

Three points on the route — Kaliningrad, Svetlogorsk and Zelenogradsk — sit closer to St Petersburg than Murmansk does, and a navigator will happily draw a thousand-kilometre road. That road, however, runs through Lithuania and Latvia, meaning an EU border and the visa formalities that come with it. In practice people fly: the flight takes about two hours, and it is the only sensible option for a weekend.

Places no road reaches

Four landmark points of the Necklace have no road link at all, which is worth knowing before you set off rather than halfway there:

• Valaam — an island on Lake Ladoga. Hydrofoils run from Priozersk and Sortavala in summer; winter access depends on the ice.
• Kizhi — an island on Lake Onega, reached by hydrofoil from Petrozavodsk. That means 423 km of driving first, then a boat.
• Solovetsky Islands — in the White Sea: a flight from Arkhangelsk, or a boat from Kem and Belomorsk, which you must drive to first.
• The Manpupuner rock formations in Komi — helicopter, or a multi-day hike. This is an expedition, not a weekend.

The Nenets Okrug is a case of its own: the simplest way to Naryan-Mar from St Petersburg is by plane.

Where to start if it is your first trip

A single day. Oreshek Fortress at Shlisselburg is only 50 km out and is the most underrated day trip from St Petersburg. Koporye (104 km) is a fortress ruin with no restoration gloss. Staraya Ladoga (122 km) was the first capital of Rus.

A weekend. Vyborg (135 km) with its Monrepos park; Sortavala (258 km) as a base for Ruskeala and Valaam; Veliky Novgorod (194 km), essentially an open-air museum. Pskov together with Izborsk (296 and 329 km) makes a natural two-day trip with one night out.

A proper holiday route. The Vologda line: Kirillov with its Kirillo-Belozersky Monastery (623 km), Belozersk (638 km) and Vologda itself (658 km). Totma and Veliky Ustyug lie beyond that, but those need a week.

Getting there

Trains serve Vyborg, Pskov, Veliky Novgorod and Petrozavodsk, and buses cover some of the smaller towns. But the Necklace has a common trait: the best thing is almost never in the town itself — it is a fortress, a monastery or a manor just outside. Without a car those points cannot be strung together.

Travelling as a group or with children, a private transfer with a driver is often simpler than piecing together buses — Vyborg, Staraya Ladoga, Ivangorod, Veliky Novgorod, Sortavala, Ruskeala and Pskov are all standard runs out of St Petersburg. You can book a transfer here; drivers quote their own price for your date and route.