Kola Peninsula

The Kola Peninsula (Kolsky poluostrov; 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 settlement on the peninsula, has a population of roughly 270,000 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 the most industrially developed and urbanized region in northern Russia.

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Related concepts (19)

Murmansk Oblast

Murmansk Oblast (Murmanskaya oblast, ˈmurmənskəjə ˈobləsjtj; Murman jemm'ne) is a federal subject (an oblast) of Russia, located in the northwestern part of the country, with a total land area of . Its administrative center is the city of Murmansk. As of the 2010 Census, its population was 795,409, but at the 2021 Census this had declined to 667,744. Geographically, Murmansk Oblast is located mainly on the Kola Peninsula almost completely north of the Arctic Circle and is a part of the larger Sápmi (Lapland) region that spans over four countries.

White Sea

The White Sea (Beloye more; Karelian and Vienanmeri; 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. Administratively, it is divided between the Arkhangelsk and Murmansk oblasts and the Republic of Karelia.

Nenets people

The Nenets (ненэй ненэче, nenəj nenəče, ненцы, nentsy), also known as Samoyed, are a Samoyedic ethnic group native to northern Arctic Russia, Russian Far North. According to the latest census in 2021, there were 49,646 Nenets in the Russian Federation, most of them living in the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug, Nenets Autonomous Okrug and Taymyrsky Dolgano-Nenetsky District stretching along the coastline of the Arctic Ocean near the Arctic Circle between Kola and Taymyr peninsulas.