Getting Around Respublika Kareliya

To Kizhi you can take any ship of the russian fleet, but when you want to go through the Belomorsk Canal / Weissmeerkanal this is the only ship for you: "M/V Princess Arabella"
It is the smallest ship of the russian fleet and the only one that is able to go to through the Belomorsk Canal to the Solovietsky Islands.
This ship was built in order to serve as a floating hospital in Amsterdam before it was sold to Russsa. This ship has extra-wide corridors, large bathrooms and even an elevator big enough for the rolling beds of a hospital. BUT unfortunately it has disadvantages as well: all decks were extra-low and I very often hit my head when entering the restaurant.What you can see in my main photo is an ordinary sight in Russian rivers: there is 1 landing-stage and that is shared by all ships that are docking there and you have to walk through other ships in order to get back to your own ship.
Only our ship "M/V Princess Arabella" did not fit to these ships, because it was much smaller and the decks were not in the same level, so it would be "smashed" between 2 of the larger ships. So our ship was forced to always go alongside the other ships and change its berth or position when-ever a new ship wanted to dock or left the ports.

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Such cruises have to be booked from abroad, as the ships are chartered to travelagencies from all places of the world and you will hardly ever be able to book such a tour on a hotelship in a travelagency in Russia. My ship had only german-speaking