For the second year in a row, teachers from the SPbGASU Department of Architectural Design organized a scientific and project expedition that was selected and received funding as part of the professional competition “Rediscovering Russia”, which is held annually by the National Research University “Higher School of Economics” with the support of the presidential platform “Russia – the Land of Opportunities” and the Rosmolodezh program “More than a Journey”.

The expedition's partners were State Duma deputy from the Arkhangelsk region Aleksandr Spiridonov, and the administrations of Severodvinsk and the Onega region.

Last year, thanks to this program, students and teachers of the Department visited the Kola Peninsula. This time, the program of the expedition "Russian North", which took place from 6 to 16 October, included a route through the cities and settlements of the Arkhangelsk region.

During the expedition, students, under the guidance of their mentors, developed concepts for tourist centers with guest houses in villages in connection with regional centers of attraction (the cities of Severodvinsk, Onega, Nyandoma, Kargopol). These facilities will serve as a support platform for attracting Russian and foreign tourists to the villages in order to create tourism and recreation infrastructure, as a source of investment in the villages of the Russian North. The task of tourist centers is to create a modern tourist infrastructure, connections between the regional city and natural and cultural sites of northern villages that are attractive to tourists.

The new tourist infrastructure facilities are designed taking into account the optimal simultaneous capacity of all areas of the complex, including tourists and local residents.

The obtained solutions can be adapted for the development of other attractive tourist destinations in the Arkhangelsk region and other regions of the Russian North.

In addition to the students of the SPbGASU Department of Architectural Design, the expedition was attended by students of our partner universities in the consortium "The Future of Arctic Architecture and Climate Dynamics": the Ural State University of Architecture and Arts (USAHU, Ekaterinburg) and the Siberian Federal University (Krasnoyarsk). The projects were supervised by Associate Professors at the SPbGASU Department of Architectural Design Fedor Perov, Igor Ivanov, Olga Kokorina and Aleksandra Eremeeva.

The results of the expedition were transferred to the administrations of municipal centers of the Arkhangelsk region, the cities of Severodvinsk and Onega, as well as to interested representatives of the settlements under study for practical application.

“The fact that the application from the SPbGASU Department of Architectural Design for the expedition was again selected for the “Rediscovering Russia” competition confirms the relevance and demand for scientific and design developments in the field of Northern architecture, which the department has been engaged in for several years,” notes Aleksandra Eremeeva, Associate Professor at the SPbGASU Department of Architectural Design.

Alena Kuznetsova, a second-year master's student in the Department of Architectural Design and a native of Severodvinsk, sees great tourism potential in her native region: "There is a unique identity here - the northern climate, wooden architecture, especially the churches."

"We liked the projects. They are very well developed, take into account the peculiarities of transport logistics and the architectural appearance of the village. This is a good experience for both the students and the Severodvinsk administration," says Maksim Tufanov, Head of the Department of Urban Development and Land Relations of the city of Severodvinsk.

“Our expedition program gives students the opportunity to experience in practice what they study in the classroom, which becomes the topic of their work,” emphasized Igor Ivanov, Associate Professor at the SPbGASU Department of Architectural Design.