City in Murmansk Oblast, Russia
About Murmansk
Murmansk is a port city and the administrative center of Murmansk Oblast in the far northwest part of Russia. It is the world's largest city north of the Arctic Circle and sits on both slopes and banks of Kola Bay, with its bulk on the east bank of the inlet. The bay, a modest fjord, is an estuarine inlet of the Barents Sea. The city is a major port of the Arctic Ocean and is about 100 kilometres (62 mi) from the border with Norway, 180 kilometres (110 mi) from the border with Finland, and 1,930 kilometres (1,200 mi) from Moscow.
Etymology
The name of the city is derived from Murman, from an old name for Norwegians by Russians; it is likely a borrowing from Old Norse norðmaðr (possibly related to Old English Norþmann and English Northman), which gave its name to the Murman Coast and the surrounding region including the Kola Peninsula.
History
Murmansk was the last city founded in the Russian Empire. In 1915, World War I needs led to the construction of the northern part of the Kirov Railway: a railroad from Petrozavodsk to an ice-free location on the Murman Coast in the Russian Arctic, to which Russia's allies shipped military supplies. The terminus became known as the Murman station and soon boasted a port, a naval base, and an adjacent settlement with a population that quickly grew in size and soon surpassed the nearby towns of Alexandrovsk and Kola. On June 29 [O.S. July 12], 1916, Russian Transport Minister Alexander Trepov petitioned to grant urban status to the railway settlement. On July 6 [O.S. July 19], 1916, the petition was approved and the town was named Romanov-on-Murman (Рома́нов-на-Му́рмане, Romanov-na-Murmane), after the Imperial Russian dynasty, the Romanovs. On September 21 [O.S. …
Geography
Murmansk experiences a subarctic climate (Köppen Dfc), with long and cold (though average by arctic standards) winters and short, cool summers. In the city, freezing temperatures are routinely experienced from October to May. Average temperatures exceed 0 degrees Celsius only from May through October. The average low during the coldest part of the year in Murmansk is approximately −14 °C (7 °F). However, temperatures routinely plunge below −20 °C (−4 °F) during the winter. Murmansk's brief summer is mild, with average highs in July exceeding +17 °C (63 °F). The city is slightly wetter during the summer than the winter and receives an annual average of just under 500 mm (20 in) of precipitation. …
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