Where to Stay in Perm, Perm Krai

What is Perm known for?

Perm is known for its museums, its ballet heritage, and its long industrial life at the edge of the Ural country. Art defines it most. The Perm Art Museum draws the crowds, and the Sergei Diaghilev Museum recalls the impresario born here who carried Russian ballet to the world.

Contemporary work has its own hall in the Perm Museum of Contemporary Art, while quirkier landmarks such as the Permyak Salty Ears fix the city's own folklore, all within the wider setting of Perm Krai.

What are the main landmarks in Perm?

The main landmarks of Perm gather its museums, churches, and monuments along the central streets. The Perm Art Museum leads, set beside the Perm Regional Museum along the central streets. Ballet has its shrine too.

The Sergei Diaghilev Museum honours the city's most famous son, while the Meshkov Mansion, the Saint Peter and Paul Cathedral, and the folkloric Permyak Salty Ears round out a centre that also holds the Monument to the Heroes of the Front and Rear.

What is the history of Perm?

Perm was founded in 1723 around a copper-smelting works at the edge of the Ural country, one of the industrial towns that opened the mountain frontier. Metal made it. Copper works and the river landing drew settlement, and the town grew into a provincial capital and a hub of trade in salt, timber, and ore, its wealth showing later in mansions such as the Meshkov Mansion.

From that early period rose the Saint Peter and Paul Cathedral, while the Perm Regional Museum keeps the record of the region's mining and merchant past. The city entered the wider culture through its people. Sergei Diaghilev, remembered in the Sergei Diaghilev Museum, grew up here before carrying Russian ballet abroad.

Hard years followed in the twentieth century, when the city was renamed Molotov and turned to heavy war industry, a chapter marked by the Monument to the Heroes of the Front and Rear and the monument of the Ural Volunteer Corps. Through renaming and revolution Perm held its museums and churches, so the long industrial story of Perm Krai still runs plainly through its streets.

Where is Perm?

Perm spreads for a long stretch along a broad river within Perm Krai, at the western edge of the Ural country. The town follows the water. Its streets and the Perm Art Museum line the high bank, and the built-up area runs many kilometres downstream rather than gathering into one tight core.

Beyond the city the wider region of Perm Krai rises eastward into the forested Ural hills, a land of taiga, rivers, and old mining ground reaching away from the town.

What is the climate of Perm?

Perm has a cold continental climate of long, snowy winters and short, warm summers. Winter dominates the year. Deep frost and heavy snow settle over the river bank and the streets around the Perm Art Museum for months, in a season shaped by the nearness of the Ural hills across Perm Krai.

Summer brings a brief warmth and long northern daylight to the riverside, before autumn turns the town quickly back toward the deep cold that marks this edge of the country.

How do you get to Perm?

Getting to Perm runs by rail, air, and river across Perm Krai. The Trans-Siberian line passes through it. Trains reach the central stations directly, an airport serves flights from farther afield, and river craft call along the waterfront in the warm months.

From each arrival the riverside centre, with the Perm Art Museum and the Perm Regional Museum, lies a short way in among the old civic streets.