Severomorsk in Russia

1 October 2022 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General Reading Time:  6 minutes

Northern Fleet © flickr.com - Сергей Шинкарюк/cc-by-2.0

Northern Fleet © flickr.com – Сергей Шинкарюк/cc-by-2.0

Severomorsk, known as Vayenga until April 18, 1951, is a closed town in Murmansk Oblast, Russia. Severomorsk is the main administrative base of the Russian Northern Fleet. The town is located on the coast of the Barents Sea along the Kola Bay 25 kilometers (16 mi) northeast of Murmansk, the administrative centre of the oblast, to which it is connected by railway and a motorway. The town of Polyarny is in the immediate vicinity on the opposite side of Kola Bay.   read more…

Stalin’s last Red Army

4 May 2015 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General Reading Time:  8 minutes

Red king crab © National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration - www.afsc.noaa.gov

Red king crab © National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration – www.afsc.noaa.gov

The king crab is native to the Bering Sea, north Pacific Ocean, around the Kamchatka Peninsula and neighbouring Alaskan waters. It was introduced artificially by Soviet Union‘s Joseph Stalin into the Murmansk Fjord, Barents Sea, during the 1960s to provide new, valuable catch for Soviet fishermen. The average temperature of the water for general survival of the crab is between 39°F (4°C) and 50°F (10°C). The crabs prefer to be in the lower temperatures but can continue a stable life cycle in the warmer temperatures. The depth at which it can live has a lot to do with what stage of their life cycle they are in; newly born crabs stay in the more shallow waters where there is plenty of food and protection for them to survive.   read more…

Kirkenes in Northern Norway

21 March 2015 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General Reading Time:  6 minutes

© Bair175/cc-by-sa-3.0

© Bair175/cc-by-sa-3.0

Kirkenes is a town with a population of 3,500 in Sør-Varanger Municipality in Finnmark county, in the far northeastern part of Norway. The town lies on a peninsula along the Bøkfjorden, an arm of the large Varangerfjorden. The main church for Kirkenes is Kirkenes Church, located in the Haganes area of the town. Kirkenes is served by Kirkenes Airport in Høybuktmoen. There are non-stop flights to Oslo and Tromsø. Kirkenes is one end of the route of the Hurtigruten, which cruises daily up and down the Norway coast to and from Bergen. One can drive 100 kilometres (62 mi) south, and walk 10 kilometres (6.2 mi), into the Øvre Pasvik National Park, reaching the border point of the three countries (Muotkavaara), where the three time zones meet. The town is situated about 400 kilometres (250 mi) north of the Arctic Circle.   read more…

Theme Week Russia – Murmansk on the Arctic Circle

16 January 2015 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General Reading Time:  6 minutes

K-322 Cachalot, a Russian Northern Fleet AKULA class nuclear-powered attack submarine underway on the surface © US Navy

K-322 Cachalot, a Russian Northern Fleet AKULA class nuclear-powered attack submarine underway on the surface
© US Navy

Murmansk is a port city and the administrative center of Murmansk Oblast, located in the extreme northwest part of Russia, on the Kola Bay, an inlet of the Barents Sea, a marginal sea of the Arctic Ocean, on the northern shore of the Kola Peninsula, close to the Russia’s borders with Norway and Finland. Despite its extreme northern location above the Arctic Circle, Murmansk tends to be nearly the same as any other Russian city of its size, featuring highway and railway access to the rest of Europe, a railway station, and the northernmost trolleybus system on Earth.   read more…

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