Qibla direction in Petrozavodsk

How to face the Qibla in Petrozavodsk

Stand where you will pray and find north first. Then turn towards south and move a further 7.9° towards east: the result is the bearing of 172.1°. The direction is close to due south, which makes it easy to remember.

Scholars agree that someone who can see the Kaaba must face it exactly, while someone far away faces its direction (jihat al-Ka‘bah) as precisely as reasonably possible. If a mosque is nearby, its mihrab and prayer lines are the easiest reference, since they were set when the building was laid out. At home, mark the direction once with tape or a small arrow so the whole family prays the same way.

Why a flat map shows a different direction

A straight line drawn on a flat (Mercator) map from Petrozavodsk to Mecca points to 174.5° (south), 2.4° away from the correct 172.1°. That map line is a rhumb line: it keeps the same compass heading all the way, but it is not the true shortest route. The Qibla follows the great circle, the shortest path on the curved Earth, which is why the bearing differs.

The angle on this page is the initial bearing of the great circle from 61.7849° N, 34.3469° E to the Kaaba (21.4225° N, 39.8262° E). It is the method used by mosque architects and by every serious Qibla calculator, and it gives one exact answer for each point on Earth.

Distance from Petrozavodsk to Mecca and Medina

Mecca is 4,508 km from Petrozavodsk as the crow flies, and Medina, the city of the Prophet ﷺ, is 4,169 km away. A direct flight would take roughly 5 h 48 min, although most pilgrims from Petrozavodsk connect through Jeddah or Medina airport.

Clocks in Petrozavodsk run the same time as Mecca all year. Prayer times, however, depend on the sun at your own location, so always use the prayer times of Petrozavodsk rather than those of Mecca.

Finding the Qibla with the sun in Petrozavodsk

On 365 days of 2027, the sun passes exactly through the Qibla direction of Petrozavodsk while it is well above the horizon. At that moment, facing the sun means facing Mecca. The effect is most frequent in January (31 days); for example, on 1 January 2027 it happens at 12:12 local time.

The sun is never opposite the Qibla of Petrozavodsk during daylight, so the shadow method does not apply here; the left-hand column is the one to use.

Twice a year the sun passes directly over the Kaaba, on 28 May 2027 and 16 July 2027. Both moments are in daylight in Petrozavodsk: at 12:18 and 12:27 local time, face the sun and you face the Qibla exactly, anywhere in the city.

Petrozavodsk compared with other cities

Compared with Moscow, 697 km away, the Qibla in Petrozavodsk is turned 4.2° further anticlockwise (172.1° against 176.4°), and Mecca is 686 km farther away. The nearest city with its own Qibla page, Saint Petersburg (300 km), prays towards 165.9°, a difference of 6.3°.

Across the 158 cities in Russia on this site, the Qibla ranges from 148.7° in Kaliningrad to 305.3° in Petropavlovsk-Kamchatskiy, a spread of 156.6°. That is too large to use one national direction, so each city has its own bearing.

See all cities on the Qibla page for Russia.

Qibla in cities near Petrozavodsk

• Saint Petersburg165.9° · 300 km
• Kolpino166.2° · 305 km
• Cherepovets177.1° · 353 km
• Veliky Novgorod166.9° · 401 km
• Severodvinsk180.0° · 413 km
• Vologda180.1° · 416 km