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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 30,000. 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 [ ?]

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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