by Nina GOLIKOVA, journalist (Murmansk)

When travelling across the Central Russia to the Kola Peninsula, you will surely visit the town of Kandalaksha, a kind of threshold to this territory located at the intersection of overland and water ways, at the confluence of the Neva River and the Kandalaksha Gulf of the White Sea. The town is surrounded by beautiful conifer forests and hills with tops rounded by the glacier that covered this area about 10-15 thous. years ago; after melting, it left traces-numerous lakes of crystal-clear water, rivers, full of rapids and enormous boulders with bulging smooth surfaces called "lambs' foreheads".

The first record describing this territory and local tribes belongs to the Norwegian sailor Ottar who in the 9th century navigated around the Kola Peninsula and surveyed the White Sea shore. From the early 12th century, the region made part of the Novgorod Republic *, from 1478 it joined the centralized Russian state. Known as the "edge of the world", the region

* Novgorod Republic-a medieval state covering the territory from the Baltic Sea to the Ural Mountains that existed from 1136; in 1478 joined the Moscow Principality.-Ed.

was populated by the Finno-Ugric tribes, was rich in fur animals, fish and sea animals, which attracted men of courage and all kinds of adventurers. Many of them settled down there forever and assimilated with the aboriginal population, as a result of which there arose a new ethnos-the Pomors.

It is believed that the town of Kandalaksha was established in 1517 when it was first mentioned in the Russian chronicles. Ten years later, the educator of the Lapp people (the Finno-Ugric ethnos living in the

north of Europe, including the coastline of the White Sea), historian and theologian Feodorit of Kola built the Church of the Nativity of John the Forerunner there, where the locals adopted Orthodox Christianity. Then, in 1548 he established the monastery of Kandalaksha on a small cape in the estuary of the Niva River (since then called the Monastery Hook*), six years later he obtained the tsar's charter for the adjacent lands.

Little by little, the monastery (only the Church of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin has survived till our days) became surrounded by houses of the Pomors mainly

* Hook-wave-built cape in the lake or a sea.-Ed.

engaged in fishing-basically herring, cod, and salmon always in high demand. In the meanwhile, due to the beneficial geopolitical location and absence of defence, the settlement was regularly attacked and devastated by foreign countries. In the 16th century the peaceful settlement of Kandalaksha was destroyed by the Swedes and Finns, in the 19th century (during the Crimean War of 1853-1856) the settlement was captured by the British landing forces, but soon was regained by the local garrison. Shortly after that, Kandalaksha was attacked by the British naval artillery destructing the church, cereal depot, household facilities, and peasants' houses.

Nevertheless, irrespective of the scope of destruction, Kandalaksha emerged from the ruins. It is not by chance that the writer, traveler, researcher of customs, traditions, languages, and beliefs of the Russian people, the Honorary Member of the St. Petersburg AS (from 1900) Sergei Maximov who visited Kandalaksha after the English invasion called it "obstinate".

This quiet, cozy ancient town (the settlement turned into the town in 1938) is often called a gem of the Arctic Circle: it is located in a picturesque valley surrounded by hills and conifer forests, on the bank of the Niva River and Kandalaksha Gulf with cliffy shores and numerous small islands. Corners of primordial nature, innumerable lakes, rivers full of rapids, and mysterious ancient monuments attract researchers and enthusiasts to this northern region.

The top point of Kandalaksha is Krestovaya Gora (Cross Mountain) (211.5 m above the sea level)-a wooden cross was installed there in the 16th century in the place of the biggest Lapp pagan temple that had been constructed there before the locals adopted Christianity. Unfortunately, the cross has not preserved; nowadays, a new steel cross almost 5 m high and weighing about 200 kg was erected there in 2006 in commemoration of the 480th anniversary of adoption of Christianity by the region headed by Feodorit of Kola; it is worth saying that the cross was lifted to the mountain top on hands.

Around the town you can find evidence of ancient epochs, for example, unique stones ringing: when hit, you can hear tinkling and even booming sound. According to the scientists, this is explained by microcracks in the nickel containing ultrabasite rock of magmatic origin. In ancient times, people worshipped these amazing natural artifacts and believed them to be magic.

In the Kola Peninsula, in the Kandalaksha region in particular, there are many stones, mostly granite, practically not used for construction purposes. As specialists say, the pagan population believed many of them to be sacred. The stones are located far away from roads, and it is very difficult to get there. Such artifacts include, for example, seidas both of natural (huge stones or stones of rare shape) and artificial (a heap of boulders in the form of a head or one big stone put on several smaller ones) origin.

There exist a number of scientific hypotheses to explain worship of seidas. The Laplanders believed that they were inhabited by ancestors' spirits: after the patriarch of the tribe died, a kind of monument was erected on his tomb. Most researchers believe that worship of these monuments formed gradually: people tried to propitiate them as gods offering sacrifice: blood of killed animals, antlers, etc. People believed that in return for such respectful attitude, the holy stones could reward them by a rich catch offish, game, cure from a disease or make one successful. The place around stones was considered forbidden too; ancient people surrounded it with a wall and were allowed to enter it only with a tribute. Such pagan temples are not a rare thing in the hills around Kandalaksha, most of them are located on the Volosyanaya hill 3 km away from the town.

A short distance away from Kandalaksha, there is a mysterious stone labyrinth called Babylon by the locals; according to expert estimates, it was constructed 4,000 years ago. The labyrinth looks like a spiral made of boulders; overgrown with grass so that you can even pass by without noticing them. It is not the only stone structure on the Kola Peninsula: for example, there are some similar structures near the Umba and Ponoi

rivers, analogous structures can be found also in other places on the planet-round, U-shaped and other sophisticated forms. Till now, scientists do not know the purpose of these structures and attribute them to sacred facilities-it is likely that in the old times they served to hold magic ceremonies and rituals, for instance, to attract luck in hunting or fishing.

Silent stone witnesses of the old times strictly keeping their secrets are located in the territory of the Kandalaksha State Natural Reserve, one of the oldest and most popular reserves among lovers of travelling. It was set up in 1932 as a reserve to protect the habitat of circum-aquatic, planktonic, and sea birds, first of all, common eider, the biggest northern sea duck known for its valuable and very light fluff considered as the best natural heater in the world. The female picks it in the lower part of the breast and belly to spread out the nest-a hole about 10 cm deep made in the peat.

It should be noted that the population of this wonderful bird dropped down drastically as far back as in the 18th century due to illegal hunting. All attempts made to restore the population were in vain, the situation kept deteriorating, which was proved by the results of field expeditions in late 1920s. Soon, a big group of islands was announced as reserves for forest and water fowl.

The reserve is located in the territory of the Murmansk Region, Karelia, on over 370 islands of the

Barents Sea, Kandalaksha Gulf and offers a great variety of natural landscapes: mountains, sea, forests, rock islands, tundras, and meadows. Taiga areas (about 80 percent of the reserve territory) are covered mainly by pine and spruce, sometimes you may see birch, alder, osier, wild ash, and cade; ground cover is composed of cowberry, blueberry, bearberry, and heath. In the boggy areas there grow about 400 species of muscoids, on the sea coast-bright flowers: wood crane, willow herb, golden rob, bluebells, etc. Some of the representatives of the local flora (for example, arctic rockrose and Taraxacum leueoglossum) are found nowhere else in the world.

Speaking of the animal world, there exist 67 species of mammals (bears, elks, martens, foxes, squirrels, ermines, weasels, minks, etc.), 2 species of reptiles (common lizard and European northern viper), 3 species of amphibians (European common toad, moor fog and brown fog), 258 species of birds. On the archipelago of Seven Islands in the Barents Sea, there are big rookeries with dominating thin-billed murre, thick-billed murre, and auks.

Water bodies of the reserve are populated by ringed seal, sea hare, and gray seal, sometimes the Kandalaksha Gulf is visited by white whales. There are numerous shoals of fish-navaga, cod, flatfish, lumpfish, sculpins, White Sea herring, and numerous invertebrates-mollusks (including muscles), barnacles, scuds, etc.

The reserve is a large-scale scientific laboratory focused first of all on monitoring of climatic processes, including ice conditions, air temperature, precipitation level, as well as periods of blossoming and fructification, migration and breeding of birds, etc. The results of monitoring have been published in the Chronicles of the Nature magazine since 1948. In 1957 the reserve obtained its own museum in the town of Kandalaksha; it holds over 200 exhibits to get visitors acquainted with flora and fauna of this unique territory-dummies of local animals, tables, drawings, dioramas The Sea Bottom, Birds of the White Sea, Birds of the Barents Sea, etc.

In the North, there was used the saying "From Khol-mogory to Kola there are thirty-three Nicholas", meaning that this region is rich in churches dedicated to St. Nicholas, protector of travelers, including the Pomors. In fact, there were built wooden churches of indescribable beauty. Unfortunately, wooden structures do not live long: only two wooden churches have been preserved in the Murmansk Region till now-in the settlement of Varzuga (the Church of Dormition built in 1674) and Kovda (the Church of St. Nicholas erected in the early 18th century in place of the ancient church built before the 15th century).

The church in the settlement of Kovda (Kandalaksha District) has been recently renewed and trimmed. The rectangular 14.3 m high main building and an altar butt joint have been made of thin logs, while the spacious canteen with carved pillars is built of thick logs; the church is crowned with an inverted V-shaped two-tier roof with a large cupola on a massive drum. Inside the church you can see a three-tier iconostasis, while the icons from it are kept now in the museums of Murmansk, St. Petersburg, and Petrozavodsk. Near the church, there is a small chapel of 1705, and the whole complex is surrounded by a wooden fence.

Recently, a small wooden church of the Nativity of St John the Baptist was built in Kandalaksha that has become a decoration of the town. In the neighboring Ter-sky District, there was built an ornate white chapel of the Nameless monk Tersky (in place of the ruined one).

These and other sights of the region are described in detail in the publication Kandalaksha, a Town by the White Sea, issued in 2008 to celebrate the 70th anniversary of Kandalaksha as a town. The book is well illustrated: there are many photos of the streets and buildings constructed in the mid-20th century till our days, landscapes, sea bottom and its inhabitants, forest products and the people in love with their small motherland, who did a lot to make it better and preserve its original and unique character.