Pankovka offers two distinct activities: the private stone mill museum and the organised Art Cardio walk “Into the Oak Grove to Boss Kronos”. The walk is five kilometres long, crosses three bridges in Pankovka and is led by the museum’s host. The activities therefore differ in format: an independent activity at the museum or a guided route.

Grinding and baking at the private museum

At the private stone mill museum, guests can grind flour themselves and bake flatbreads from it. The focus is on two related activities: first grinding, then baking. Travellers who want to include a hands-on activity in their plans can consider this option. The operator offers excursions for booking; confirm the details before your visit.

An organised walk with its own themes

The walk includes viewpoints and stories about the Veryazhka River, the oak grove and the local dacha area. As well as the route itself, viewpoints and stories shape the character of the tour. When weighing up the two options, you can compare the practical experience of grinding and baking at the museum with a guided route featuring landscape themes. For the organised walk, confirm arrangements with the organiser before your visit.

A regional perspective on Novgorod Oblast

In Novgorod Oblast, the scale shifts from an individual walk to a larger landscape. Valdai National Park covers 159,100 hectares and spans the three districts of Valdaysky, Demyansky and Okulovsky. The park description frames the landscape in terms of its area and several districts, while the walk in Pankovka is described by a specific route length. These are different ways of considering nature and outdoor activities as part of regional travel.

In Valday, staff at the Bell Museum demonstrate bell-ringing techniques and let visitors try them out themselves. The Museum Bell Centre in Valday displays bells from around the world, bell types dating from the 3rd century BC to the Middle Ages, and modern souvenir bells. The region’s bell-related attractions thus range from hands-on bell ringing to a collection spanning a broad period of history.

Valday’s Museum of the County Town offers another cultural highlight. Its exhibition, opened in 1998, covers the everyday lives of the town’s residents, the development of local trades, and the lives of individual Valday families and well-known summer visitors to Valday. The museum also preserves the memory of local craftspeople, including stonemasons, carpenters, blacksmiths, bubliki bakers, soapmakers and bell founders. Everyday life, trades and individual professions complement the region’s bell-related attractions.

A monument to Valday’s blacksmiths and bell masters was erected in Valday in 2017. From Valday’s waterfront promenade, there is a view of the Iversky Monastery. Together with the museum exhibits, the monument and viewpoint offer further, clearly distinct ways to explore Novgorod Oblast.

Discover more destinations: Retle, Valday, Borovichi, Trubichino, Pribrezhnaya, Mstinskiy Most, Petrovshchina, Chudovo

For the regional travel overview: Novgorod Oblast.