Arkhangelsk
|
|
Polar_siberia_4.png
The city of Arkhangelsk (Арха́нгельск, formerly in English Archangel) lies on the Northern Dvina River (Се́верная Двина́) near its exit into the White Sea in the far north of European Russia. It is the capital of the Arkhangelsk Oblast. Geographical location Template:Coor dm Population 355,500 (2002).
| Contents |
History
In 1555 Ivan the Terrible granted trade privileges to English merchants. They founded the Company of Merchant Adventurers (later renamed the Moscow Company), and began sending ships annually into the estuary of the Northern Dvina. Dutch merchants also began bringing their ships into the White Sea. In 1584 Ivan ordered the founding of Novo-Kholmogory (Kholmogory being a smaller town at the mouth of the Dvina) which would later become Arkhangelsk. At the time access to the Baltic Sea was still controlled by the Hanseatic League, so while Arkhangelsk was icebound in winter, it remained Moscow's only link to the sea. Arkhangelsk and pomors maintained trade routes to Northern Siberia as far as trans-Ural city of Mangazeya.
Lenin_Archangelsk.png
In 1682 Peter I took power at the age of ten, and in 1693 he ordered the creation of a state shipyard in Arkhangelsk. A year later the ships Svyatoye Prorochestvo (Holy Prophesy), Apostol Pavel (Apostle Paul) and the yacht Svyatoy Pyotr (Saint Peter) were sailing in the White Sea. However he also realized that Arkhangelsk would always be limited as a port due to the five months of ice cover, and after a successful campaign against Swedish armies in the Baltic area, he founded Saint Petersburg in 1704.
Arkhangelsk city declined in the 18th century as the Baltic became more important, but trade revived at the end of the 19th century when a railroad to Moscow was completed and timber became a major export. During World War I and World War II Arkhangelsk was a major port of entry for Allied aid.
The city resisted Bolshevik rule during 1918 to 1920 and was a stronghold of the anti-Bolshevik White Army, supported by the military intervention of Entente forces.
Economy
Today Arkhangelsk remains a major seaport, now open year-round due to improvements in icebreakers. The city is primarily a timber and fishing center.
Miscellaneous
A maritime school, tecnhical university, and a regional museum are located there.
Mikhail Lomonosov came from the Arkhangelsk area.
The James Bond movie GoldenEye begins at a dam by a chemical facility near Arkhangelsk. These locations were also featured in the derived Nintendo 64 video game, GoldenEye 007.
British author Robert Harris's fictional book Archangel centres on a plot to restore Communism in Russia through a son of Stalin, who is taken to the wilderness and hidden near the town as a young boy by the KGB. In 2005 it was made into a two-part TV drama by the BBC, in which the central character, a British historian, was played by Daniel Craig.
Links
- Official web site of Arkhangelsk City Administration (http://www.arhcity.ru/) (in Russian)
- Pomor State University (http://www.pomorsu.ru/) (in Russian)
- Arkhangelsk State Technical University (http://www.agtu.ru/) (in Russian)
- Northern State Medical University (http://www.nsmu.ru/) (in Russian)
- Arkhangelsk regional museum of local lore, history and economy (http://www.aokm.ru/) (in Russian and English)
- Arkhangelsk community at LiveJournal (http://www.livejournal.com/community/arkhangelsk/)de:Archangelsk
es:Arjánguelsk eo:Arkangelsko el:Αρχάγγελσκ hu:Arhangelszk nl:Archangelsk ja:アルハンゲリスク pl:Archangielsk os:Архангельск ru:Архангельск fi:Arkangeli