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The White Sea (Russian: Белое море, Béloye móre; Karelian and Finnish: Vienanmeri, lit. Dvina Sea; Nenets: Сэрако ямʼ, Serako yam) is a southern inlet of the Barents Sea located on the northwest coast of Russia. It is surrounded by Karelia to the west, the Kola Peninsula to the north, and the Kanin Peninsula to the northeast. The whole of the White Sea is under Russian sovereignty and considered to be part of the internal waters of Russia.[3] Administratively, it is divided between Arkhangelsk and Murmansk oblasts and the Republic of Karelia.
The major port of Arkhangelsk is located on the White Sea. For much of Russia's history this was Russia's main centre of international maritime trade, conducted by the Pomors ("seaside settlers") from Kholmogory. In the modern era it became an important Soviet naval and submarine base. The White Sea–Baltic Canal connects the White Sea with the Baltic Sea.
The White Sea is one of the four seas named in English after common colour terms—the others being the Black, Red and Yellow Seas.
The White Sea–Baltic Canal (Russian: Беломо́рско-Балти́йский кана́л, Byelomorsko-Baltiyskiy kanal, BBK), often abbreviated to White Sea Canal (Belomorkanal) is a ship canal in Russia opened on Wednesday 2 August 1933. It connects the White Sea, in the Arctic Ocean, with Lake Onega, which is further connected to the Baltic Sea. Until 1961, its original name was the Stalin White Sea–Baltic Canal (Belomorsko-Baltiyskiy Kanal imeni Stalina).
The canal was constructed by forced labor of gulag inmates. Beginning and ending with a labor force of 126,000, between 12,000 and 25,000 laborers died according to official records,[3] while Anne Applebaum's estimate is 25,000 deaths.[4]
The canal runs 227 km (141 mi), partially along several canalized rivers and Lake Vygozero. As of 2008, it carries only light traffic of between ten and forty boats per day. Its economic advantages are limited by its minimal depth of 3.5 m (11.5 ft),[citation needed] inadequate for most seagoing vessels. This depth typically corresponds to river craft with deadweight cargo up to 600 tonnes, while useful seagoing vessels of 2,000–3,000 dwt typically have drafts of 4.5–6 m (15–20 ft).[5][6][7] The canal was originally proposed to be 5.4 m (17.7 ft) deep; however, the cost and time constraints of Stalin's first five-year plan forced the much shallower draught.[8]
Arkhangelsk (UK: /ˌɑːrkæŋˈɡɛlsk, ɑːrˈkæŋɡɛlsk/, US: /ɑːrˈkɑːnɡɛlsk/;[13] Russian: Арха́нгельск, IPA: [ɐrˈxanɡʲɪlʲsk]), also known in English as Archangel and Archangelsk, is a city and the administrative center of Arkhangelsk Oblast, Russia. It lies on both banks of the Northern Dvina near its exit into the White Sea. The city spreads for over 40 kilometres (25 mi) along the banks of the river and numerous islands of its delta. Arkhangelsk was the chief seaport of medieval and early modern Russia until 1703, when it was replaced by the newly-founded Saint Petersburg.
A 1,133-kilometer-long (704 mi) railway runs from Arkhangelsk to Moscow via Vologda and Yaroslavl, and air travel is served by the Talagi Airport and the smaller Vaskovo Airport. As of the 2010 Census, the city's population was 348,783.[5]
- 1 Coat of arms
- 2 History
- 3 Administrative and municipal status
- 4 Economy and infrastructure
- 5 Education
- 6 Culture
- 7 Geography
- 8 Sports
- 9 Notable people
- 10 Twin towns – sister cities
- 11 References
- 12 Further reading
- 13 External links
The Kola Peninsula (Russian: Ко́льский полуо́стров, Kolsky poluostrov; Kildin Sami: Куэлнэгк нёа̄ррк) is a peninsula in the extreme northwest of Russia, and one of the largest peninsulas of Europe. Constituting the bulk of the territory of Murmansk Oblast, it lies almost completely inside the Arctic Circle and is bordered by the Barents Sea to the north and by the White Sea to the east and southeast. The city of Murmansk, the most populous human settlement on the peninsula, has a population of roughly 300,000 residents.
While humans had already settled in the north of the peninsula in the 7th–5th millennium BCE, the rest of its territory remained uninhabited until the 3rd millennium BCE, when various peoples started to arrive from the south. By the 1st millennium CE only the Sami people remained. This changed in the 12th century, when Russian Pomors discovered the peninsula's rich resources of game and fish. Soon after, the Pomors were followed by the tribute collectors from the Novgorod Republic, and the peninsula gradually became a part of the Novgorodian lands. The Novgorodians, however, established no permanent settlements until the 15th century.
The Soviet period (1917-1991) saw a rapid population increase, although most of the new arrivals remained confined to urbanized territories along the sea coast and the railroads. The Sami people were subject to forced collectivization, including forced relocation to Lovozero and other centralized settlements, and overall the peninsula became heavily industrialized and militarized, largely due to its strategic position (as the pre-eminent Soviet ice-free Atlantic coast) and to the discovery of the vast apatite deposits in the 1920s. As a result, the ecology of the peninsula suffered major ecological damage. After the 1991 dissolution of the Soviet Union, the economy went into decline. Its population fell from 1,150,000 in 1989 to 795,000 in 2010. The peninsula recovered somewhat in the early 21st century, and is considered[by whom?] the most industrially developed and urbanized region in northern Russia.
Despite the peninsula's northerly location, its proximity to the North Atlantic Current (an extension of the Gulf Stream) leads to unusually high temperatures in winter, but also results in high winds due to the temperature variations between land and the Barents Sea. Summers are rather chilly, with the average July temperature of only 11 °C (52 °F). The peninsula is covered by taiga in the south and by tundra in the north, where permafrost limits the growth of trees, resulting in landscape dominated by shrubs and grasses. The peninsula supports a small variety of mammals, and its rivers are an important habitat for the Atlantic salmon. The Kandalaksha Nature Reserve, established to protect the population of common eider, is located in the Kandalaksha Gulf.
The peninsula is the site of the Kola Superdeep Borehole, the deepest hole drilled into the Earth.
The Barents Sea (/ˈbærənts/ BARR-ənts, also US: /ˈbɑːrənts/ BAR-ənts;[1] Norwegian: Barentshavet, Urban East Norwegian: [ˈbɑ̀ːrn̩tsˌhɑːvə];[2] Russian: Баренцево море, romanized: Barentsevo More) is a marginal sea of the Arctic Ocean,[3] located off the northern coasts of Norway and Russia and divided between Norwegian and Russian territorial waters.[4] Known among Russians in the Middle Ages as the Murman Sea ("Norse Sea"), the current name of the sea is after the historical Dutch navigator Willem Barentsz.
This is a rather shallow shelf sea, with an average depth of 230 metres (750 ft), and it is an important site for both fishing and hydrocarbon exploration.[5] The Barents Sea is bordered by the Kola Peninsula to the south, the shelf edge towards the Norwegian Sea to the west, and the archipelagos of Svalbard to the northwest, Franz Josef Land to the northeast and Novaya Zemlya to the east. The islands of Novaya Zemlya, an extension of the northern end of the Ural Mountains, separate the Barents Sea from the Kara Sea.
Although part of the Arctic Ocean, the Barents Sea has been characterised as "turning into the Atlantic"[6] or in process of being "Atlantified"[7] because of its status as "the Arctic warming hot spot." Hydrologic changes due to global warming have led to a reduction in sea ice and in stratification of the water column, which could produce major changes in weather in Eurasia.[6] One prediction is that as the Barents Sea's permanent ice-free area grows additional evaporation will increase winter snowfalls in much of continental Europe.[7]