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Murmansk

The Columbia Encyclopedia, 6th ed. | 2011 | Copyright

Murmansk , city (1989 pop. 468,000), capital of Murmansk region, NW European Russia, on the Kola Gulf of the Barents Sea. It is the terminus of the Northeast Passage and the world's largest city N of the Arctic Circle, with a polar research institute. For many years this ice-free port was a leading Soviet freight port, a base for fishing fleets, a major naval base, and the main home port of the Russian nuclear submarine fleet. Until the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the loss of state funding, Murmansk was a thriving industrial, commercial, and shipping center. Now the formerly active railroad terminus linked with Moscow and St. Petersburg has seen train traffic decrease by half. Its fish canneries, shipyards, textile factories, breweries, and sawmills have laid off workers, the commercial fleets have been sold for scrap or land their catch outside Russia, and the nuclear submarines relocated.

Murmansk was only a small village before World War I. The port and its rail line inland from Petrograd (now St. Petersburg) were built in 1915–16, when the Central Powers cut off the Russian Baltic and Black Sea supply routes. Allied forces occupied the Murmansk area from 1918 to 1920, during the Russian civil war. A major World War II supply base and port for Anglo-American convoys, Murmansk was bombarded by the Germans. During the 1970s and 80s, the Sea of Murmansk was the dump site for the exhausted cores of Soviet nuclear reactors. Murmansk oblast, with rich apatite and nickel mines, was enlarged after World War II through the incorporation of former Finnish territories, notably Petsamo ( Pechenga ).

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Murmansk

Dictionary of American History | 2003 | Copyright

MURMANSK

MURMANSK, an ice-free Russian port on the Barents Sea, became important in World War I with the completion by prisoner-of-war labor of a railway from there to Petrograd (later Leningrad). After the 1917 Russian Revolution the Allies landed a guard in Murmansk to protect their stockpiles of military goods. In 1918 some 720 U.S. military engineers helped to improve and maintain the new railroad. In World War II the "Murmansk run" was the most perilous route for convoys delivering lend-lease supplies to the Soviet Union. In July 1942 only thirteen of the thirty-six merchantmen in Convoy PQ 17 reached Murmansk.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Herring, George C., Jr. Aid to Russia, 1941–1946: Strategy, Diplomacy, the Origins of the Cold War. New York: Columbia University Press, 1973.

Van Tuyll, Hubert P. Feeding the Bear: American Aid to the Soviet Union, 1941–1945. New York: Greenwood Press, 1989.

R. W.Daly/a. r.

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Murmansk

Concise Dictionary of World Place-Names | 2005 | | Copyright

Murmansk, Russia Romanov‐na‐Murmane A province and a city‐port with a name that may be derived from the Saami word murman ‘edge of the earth’ from mur ‘sea’ and ma ‘land’. Murman was the Russian name for the coast here It was founded in 1915 as a port in the Arctic and in 1915–17 was named after the Romanov dynasty. With its fall at the time of the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917, the city was renamed.

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JOHN EVERETT-HEATH. "Murmansk." Concise Dictionary of World Place-Names. 2005. Encyclopedia.com. 28 May. 2012 <http://www.encyclopedia.com>.

JOHN EVERETT-HEATH. "Murmansk." Concise Dictionary of World Place-Names. 2005. Encyclopedia.com. (May 28, 2012). http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O209-Murmansk.html

JOHN EVERETT-HEATH. "Murmansk." Concise Dictionary of World Place-Names. 2005. Retrieved May 28, 2012 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O209-Murmansk.html

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Murmansk

Oxford Dictionary of Rhymes | 2007 | Copyright

Murmansk •Basque, Monégasque •ask, bask, cask, flask, Krasnoyarsk, mask, masque, task •facemask •arabesque, burlesque, Dantesque, desk, grotesque, humoresque, Junoesque, Kafkaesque, Moresque, picaresque, picturesque, plateresque, Pythonesque, Romanesque, sculpturesque, statuesque •bisque, brisk, disc, disk, fisc, frisk, risk, whisk •laserdisc • obelisk • basilisk •odalisque • tamarisk • asterisk •mosque, Tosk •kiosk • Nynorsk • brusque •busk, dusk, husk, musk, rusk, tusk •subfusc • Novosibirsk •mollusc (US mollusk) • damask •Vitebsk •Aleksandrovsk, Sverdlovsk •Khabarovsk • Komsomolsk •Omsk, Tomsk •Gdansk, Murmansk, Saransk •Smolensk •Chelyabinsk, Minsk •Donetsk, Novokuznetsk •Irkutsk, Yakutsk

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Free newspaper and magazine articles

	Murmansk survivor: remembering the perilous Arctic convoys that brought... Magazine article from: Esprit de Corps; 10/1/2009
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