Murmansk Region
Population, economic development and infrastructure
The population of the Murmansk Region was 1,165,000 in 1989 and dropped to 893,000 in 2002, with 45% living in the city of
Murmansk
, and 92% in urban areas.
The indigenous population of the
Kola Peninsula
is the Saami. Russian interests (tax payment to
Novgorod
) interfered already in the early 1300s. Russian settlement started in the early 1700s (Pomor trade) and became massive in the late 1800s, when the Saami finally left the southern
Kola Peninsula
and Terskiy Bereg. In 1897, the Kola Saami counted 1728 people (official census), about 22% of a total population of almost 8000. The Saami population has since remained fairly constant, i.e. population growth, emigration and assimilation were in balance, but was significantly diluted by immigrant Russians, Ukrainians and others due to the intensive industrial development. The Saami centre is the village Lovozero, as a result of the liquidation of 22 indigenous villages and resettlement of the population between the 1930s and 1970s. Today, 11 national villages still exist. Komi reindeer breeders immigrated slowly over several centuries, and many of them were forced to settle – together with a minor number of Nenets (a few hundred) – during the Stalin era. The Komi are today more numerous (ca. 2200) than the Saami (ca. 2000), though their rural residence area is mainly restricted to the villages Lovozero, Krasnoshhele and Kanevka.
The industrialised area, with a well-developed infrastructure, extends in N-S direction from the regions’s capital
Murmansk
to Kandalaksha, including the Nikel-Pechenga area in the far NW. The mining industry is one economic fundament (nickel and lead-zinc etc. at Nikel/Zapolyarnyy and Monchegorsk, iron at Olenegorsk, Revda and Kovdor, phosphate (apatite) and aluminium (bauxite) at Apatity/Kirovsk), and smelting (Nikel, Zapolyarnyy, Monchegorsk) as well as metal refinement industries (Kandalaksha) the other. The highly polluting sulphur-rich nickel ore processed in the smelters is not domestic, but imported from
Norilsk
.
Murmansk
and the surrounding urban areas are centres of metal industry and engineering (e.g. ship-building), timber and fishery.
Murmansk
is the home one of the world’s largest fishing fleets. The other inland areas have a poor infrastructure and consist of continuous tundra and taiga lands, apart from the southern taiga areas (Umba-Kandalaksha and towards the Karelian border) with forestry development.
Most power plants on the
Kola Peninsula
are hydro-electric, with the exception of Kirovsk (fossil fuel) and Polyarnye Zori (nuclear). Other nuclear installations with potential pollution effects are nuclear recycling sites at Gremikha and in the
Andreyeva
Bay
at Motovskiy zaliv (NW of Murmansk, the latter mainly used for recycling nuclear submarines. Military presence and activity is very high due to the NATO border in the west. Military ports, airbases and other army installations account for most of the white areas at or in the vicinity of the northern coast. Military exercises involve large tundra areas otherwise used as reindeer pastures and for other subsistence occupations.
Future development on the
Kola Peninsula
will include transportation lines for oil from the
Eastern Barents Sea
, Timan-Pechora and Siberian oil fields to Pechenga, which might be developed as a major ice-free oil terminal, where oil is transferred from shuttle tankers to large tankers. Alternatively, ice-breakers may lead large tankers directly to and from the oil fields to Pechenga. A third alternative, involving a coastal pipeline from Gremikha to Pechenga, is not thought to be competitive.