Kandalaksha: Encyclopedia Arctica 10: Soviet North, Geography and General

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KANDALAKSHA, a centuries-old fishing village founded by escaped and former convicts ("kandaly" is Russian for fetters), lies ^ [: ] ^ [: ] [: ] ^ north of the Arctic Circle ^ on both banks of the [: ] [: ] mouth of the non-freezing Niva River at the extremity of the Gulf of Kandalaksha, which separates the Kola (Murmansk) Peninsula from the mainland. The immediate neighborhood of the town is a lowland with highly incised shoreline and a large archipelago of islands. By vir– tue of its geographical location, it was inevitable that any railroad to Murmansk must pass through here, and when that railroad was built to receive Allied supplies in 1916, the village began to grow. However, that brought only an increase in population to 4,195 (1926), but the modernization of the railroad thereafter, the development of the port of Murmansk and the remarkable natural resources of the peninsula caused a rapid influx. [: ] By 1935 [: ] there were 17,100 in– habitants. A sawmill, printshop and [: ] [: been] electric power plant, steam-operated, had been built, as well as a fish cannery of 5,000,000 standard tins annual capacity.

With the building of the White Sea-Baltic Canal a second means of transport (in addition to the railroad) became available, and, accordingly, a four- year port improvement project was carried out at Kandalaksha. Its trans– port facilities made the town a logical location for the processing of Kola minerals, and aluminum oxide and superphosphate plants were erected there, the aluminum refinery having 20,000 tons annual capacity. It [: ] [: ] went into operation in 1939, at which time the population of the town had risen to ^3^0,000. Its importance as a railway division point grew greatly with the completion of the large Niva-II hydroelectric plant 11 miles north of the town, making possible the conversion of the railroad to electric traction between Kandalaksha and Murmansk. This made Kandalaksha in every way part of the economy of the Kola Penin– sula, so that the county of which it is the seat, including territory some miles to the south, was [: ] from transferred from the jurisdiction of the Karelian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic [: ] to that of [: ] Murmansk Oblast (cf.). Whereas developments prior to World War II caused Kandalaksha, despite its [: ] five-fold growth, to lag behind the [: ] [: ] turbulently expanding cities of Murmansk, Kirovsk and Monchegorsk in population, construction now in progress presents the possibility of passing all but Murmansk. 17 miles south of Kandalaksha, at Ruchi, a railroad has been built 60 miles westward to the Finnish frontier, link– ing with that country's network, opening the resources along the right-of- way to exploitation, and furthering international overland trade [: ] with Scandinavia. Most important is the completion, [: ] [: ] probably in 1949, just two miles north of the town, which has grown out to meet it, of the immense Niva-III power plant (cf.) This will make possible the expansion of existing industry, including a small machine manufacturing enterprise erected previously, and new construction.

^ William Mandel ^

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