Northern Russia & Acrtic Tours

Arctic Travel. Exploring Northern Russia

The Extreme North or Far North is a large part of Russia located mainly north of the Arctic Circle and boasting enormous mineral and natural resources. Its total area is about 5,500,000 square kilometers (2,100,000 sq mi), comprising about one-third of Russia's total area. Formally, the regions of the Extreme North comprise the whole of Yakutia, Magadan Oblast, Chukotka Autonomous Okrug, Kamchatka Krai and Murmansk Oblast, as well as certain parts and cities of Arkhangelsk Oblast, Komi Republic, Tyumen Oblast, Krasnoyarsk Krai, Irkutsk Oblast, Sakhalin Oblast, Khabarovsk Krai, as well as all islands of the Arctic Ocean, its seas, the Bering Sea, and the Sea of Okhotsk.

Cultures of the North: Nenets

Arctic Russia is the home of Nenets which are the indigenous people in northern Russia. They were a nomadic people that traveled across tundra for centuries long before USSR. The life in Arctic is very extreme with temperatures as low as -40°C and a normal urban people would hardly manage to survive is such hard conditions. Discover the North, surprisingly charming.

Cultures of the North: Pomory, Arkhangelsk

Although “Russian North” as a name is more about culture and history than geography, it also describes a huge area spreading from the Russia-Finland border in the east to the Ural Mountains in the west. The area's population is mostly of Russian-Finnish origin and now represents an ethnic group called “Pomory”; or, “the sea people”. For centuries the Northern Seaway was the only path that connected ancient Russia with Europe. Once Russia established routes to the Baltic and Black seas, the importance of the Pomory region dwindled and with the passing of time, the entire area became the preserve of old and diminishing Russian cultures. The Soviet period added more drama to the history of the Pomory region, as many gulag prisons were located here.