Kargopol is an old small town on the shores of Onega river in the southern part of Arkhangelsk Oblst, with population of up to 10K residents. Once an old international merchant town, it is famous for its northern architecture and crafts. After several of town wide fires, it has been rebuilt and got a modern Renaissance look with straight roads and a unique belltower in its center with memorable northern wooden baroque elements on it in 18th century. Hidden deep in vast northern forests, it became one of the largest wood processing centers in Arkhangelsk oblast. That made it reserved from urban impacts and it feels like out of time town with all its eternal calm. After our successful project on developing Arkhangelsk brand, we had been invited to visit Kargopol. Here's how it looks now:

Discussions of implementing a town brand, that nobody knew how to handle, has soon been changed to a much more urgent town problem that needed to be solved: the number of abandoned old historical houses in need of conservation, left in risk of demolishing. As of 2016 there were eight of them, whereas every had been honored to be the architectural memorial. They're called by the name of the merchant they originally belonged to: