While it IS possible to take a train to Arkhangelsk from St Petersburg or Moscow, few people want to swap a 100 minute flight for a 25-hour train journey, especially when the return fare is only 1,960 rubles from Moscow. While Rossiya flies from St Petersburg and UTair from Moscow’s Vnukovo, there’s really only one way to fly to Arkhangelsk from around Russia and that’s by Arkhangelsk Airlines, formerly Aeroflot Nord. The airline operates regular flights to and from Moscow’s Sheremtyevo 1 terminal, St. Petersburg, Murmansk, Naryan-Mar and Anderma in Nenets Okrug and several other Russian cities as well as a daily flight to Tromse in North West Norway, via Murmansk.

 

There are two airports in Arkhangelsk: Talagi airport for intercity and international flights and Vas’kovo airport for local flights (including flights to Solovetsky).

In Arkhangelsk, the Russian Oblast which borders the Arctic seas and the hydrocarbon-rich Arctic Shelf, the regional administration and business leaders see the supply of equipment and services to the oil and gas industry as a key to developing and diversifying the regional economy while small business is flourishing and providing a spur to economic growth. The oil and gas developers are wary of global warming and the ever larger icebergs they expect it to unleash on the Barents Sea but there’s not much sign of global warming in Arkhangelsk, the Oblast capital of 355,000 inhabitants founded in 1584 by order of Tsar Ivan IV (Ivan the Terrible). It sits on the Northern Dvina River, close to the Arctic White Sea, and is dominated by a three kilometer long promenade beside a broad beach.