Recently an article by Jonathan Campion on Kandalaksha has appeared in The Geographer, the Royal Scottish Geographical Society magazine.
While capturing the spirit of the place, the article falls victim to stereotypes, such as “abandoned Soviet-era aluminum smelter”: if it is “Soviet-era”, it has to be “abandoned”, like “a nice hot” fits together with “a cup of tea”.
Also, I couldn’t make sense out of the episode of a man with a gun chasing the traveler away. It sounds like the author stumbled into a military base, but there are no military bases in or around Kandalaksha. The only plausible explanation I can think of is that the author of the story happened to stumble upon a dacha owner overprotective of his property. Highly atypical I’d say.
Author here – Uncle Pasha has kindly given links to my article, so visitors to Kandalaksha, please feel free to let me know if my impressions are stereotypical, or implausible.
Trudging aimlessly around Kandalaksha … It’s something familiar to me. I did this, too! But I was there in the summer. If you’ve made such trip in winter, you are truly a hardcore traveler.